Help raise $ for Billy's Bench!!
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Billy’s Bench
We are raising money to dedicate a New York City Riverside Park bench in celebration of the life of my wife's beloved stepfather William Leo Healey - better known on the upper west side as “Billy the Hawk Man of Riverside Park.”
Message from my wife Monique:
Billy entered my life in 1986. I was 17 at the time, in High school, about to graduate, but it was as clear to me then as it is today, 35 years later, that Billy and my mother Karin were made for each other.
Billy lived a full, energetic, caring, and unconventional life. His years on the upper west side married to the “love of his life” as he regularly referred to my mother were full of adventure and determination to live life to the fullest! The love Billy gave my mother, he also shared with me, and with my husband. But most of all he enveloped our daughters Moreau and Devon, in his unconditional love for them. When Billy became a grandpa he became his most loving self. Everything was for his “babies”.
Billy was a giver, not a taker. Billy gave with abandon. He gave to the people in his life, but he also gave to the animals. He regularly spent time with the birds and squirrels in Riverside Park. He saved feral cats, reported on the Riverside hawks’ every move, called the Parks Department when he worried that the rat poison would harm his hawk family. When Covid-19 came to town, Billy made it his mission to drag his step ladder to 72nd and RSD to mask the Eleanor Roosevelt statue regularly in order to signal to the world his dedication to the protection of his park, and his beloved upper west side community.
This is why we want to honor Billy’s life of giving by giving him a place to forever be remembered, and celebrated with a beautiful name plaque on a bench that he loved to sit on in Riverside Park and 74th street. And so we invite friends, relatives, and the beautiful family Billy created of people he surrounded himself with, to join us in honoring him in whatever way you can.
If you are able to donate any amount toward the bench plaque of $8,000.00 we would be forever grateful. We can think of no better way to celebrate Billy than by inviting his “village” to contribute. We invite you to give him this community gift of a bench, named in his honor. The sooner we can raise these funds, the sooner we can reserve Billy's bench with the park's dept!!
Help us get to our goal by March 15!!!
We imagine the birds, squirrels, and hawks perching on Billy’s bench far into the future and somehow knowing that a man who fiercely loved all living things, once sat there, held court with anyone willing to talk with him, and held out hope for the good of humanity in his heart.
We are raising money to dedicate a New York City Riverside Park bench in celebration of the life of my wife's beloved stepfather William Leo Healey - better known on the upper west side as “Billy the Hawk Man of Riverside Park.”
Message from my wife Monique:
Billy entered my life in 1986. I was 17 at the time, in High school, about to graduate, but it was as clear to me then as it is today, 35 years later, that Billy and my mother Karin were made for each other.
Billy lived a full, energetic, caring, and unconventional life. His years on the upper west side married to the “love of his life” as he regularly referred to my mother were full of adventure and determination to live life to the fullest! The love Billy gave my mother, he also shared with me, and with my husband. But most of all he enveloped our daughters Moreau and Devon, in his unconditional love for them. When Billy became a grandpa he became his most loving self. Everything was for his “babies”.
Billy was a giver, not a taker. Billy gave with abandon. He gave to the people in his life, but he also gave to the animals. He regularly spent time with the birds and squirrels in Riverside Park. He saved feral cats, reported on the Riverside hawks’ every move, called the Parks Department when he worried that the rat poison would harm his hawk family. When Covid-19 came to town, Billy made it his mission to drag his step ladder to 72nd and RSD to mask the Eleanor Roosevelt statue regularly in order to signal to the world his dedication to the protection of his park, and his beloved upper west side community.
This is why we want to honor Billy’s life of giving by giving him a place to forever be remembered, and celebrated with a beautiful name plaque on a bench that he loved to sit on in Riverside Park and 74th street. And so we invite friends, relatives, and the beautiful family Billy created of people he surrounded himself with, to join us in honoring him in whatever way you can.
If you are able to donate any amount toward the bench plaque of $8,000.00 we would be forever grateful. We can think of no better way to celebrate Billy than by inviting his “village” to contribute. We invite you to give him this community gift of a bench, named in his honor. The sooner we can raise these funds, the sooner we can reserve Billy's bench with the park's dept!!
Help us get to our goal by March 15!!!
We imagine the birds, squirrels, and hawks perching on Billy’s bench far into the future and somehow knowing that a man who fiercely loved all living things, once sat there, held court with anyone willing to talk with him, and held out hope for the good of humanity in his heart.
Organizer
DeMille Halliburton
Organizer
Los Angeles, CA
