Vet gets a green-and-gold surprise

WAUPACA – Sometimes it takes a community to come together to make dreams come true and that is exactly what happened when a local bar and restaurant worked to get a veteran to his first Packer game.
Dean Loewenhagen is an Air Force veteran and has been a resident at the Wisconsin Veterans Home in King for the last five years. He’s been meandering over to Chain O’Lakes Bar & Grill for the past two years to watch sporting events on television, namely his beloved Packers.
Loewenhagen met Daniel Haboush, the general manager of Chain O’Lakes Bar & Grill, a little over two years ago and they became fast friends.
“We just connected,” Haboush said. “We always talked about sports and things like that and he would be here for the Packer game.”
Haboush said he is very fortunate in that he has gotten to enjoy going to many Packer games over the years, and one afternoon a little over a year ago he was talking about an upcoming game he was going to go to.

“Dean started tearing up and said ‘I wish I could go to the game, I’ve always wanted to my whole life,’” Haboush said. “He looked at his [wheel]chair and said ‘I know I’m never going to be able to go.’”
After Dean left that afternoon, Haboush made it a goal to get Loewenhagen to a game.
Loewenhagen has been in a wheelchair for a little over five years, which presents some obstacles when planning a trip to Lambeau Field.
Loewenhagen grew up north of La Crosse and said getting to a Packer game was almost impossible unless you had season tickets.
“So I never had the opportunity to go and once I was handicapped and in this wheelchair the odds of me getting there got even worse,” Loewenhagen said.
Amongst the seating and ticket challenges, there is parking and transportation that also need to be taken into consideration.

Setting it up
Haboush said this endeavor became a community effort as a lot of pieces needed to fall into place before the trip could be made.
First he needed to find handicap-accessible tickets, which he was able to find through a friend, Jenny Velazquez, who has a disabled son and season tickets that are handicap accessible.
In order to purchase the tickets they held multiple fund raisers, including strip cards for birdhouses, which were made and donated by a Cal Hoppa and Eric Minehart.

The fund is referred to as the “birdhouse fund,” the money that is raised is used not only for the tickets but also for donating to various community organizations.
Now that Haboush had the tickets the next obstacle was finding a wheelchair van to transport Loewenhagen.
An employee at the Chain O’Lakes Bar & Grill, Wacey Garton, is also a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), she was able to track down a van with a wheelchair lift in order to transport Loewenhagen to Lambeau field.
Next was securing permission from the Veteran’s Home at King, which involves filling out paperwork to allow Loewenhagen to go on the day trip, which Haboush had to do.
Haboush said Ben Harn at the Chain One Stop donated a gas gift card for the Lambeau trip as well, making all the pieces fall in to place. The next step was surprising Loewenhagen with the tickets.
“It just took the whole community and everybody got together and helped,” Haboush said. “The community came together and got Dean to that game, it wasn’t just me who did that.”

Surprise
Loewenhagen arrived to watch a Brewers game one afternoon, wearing his brand new Packers jacket.
Haboush said he told Loewenhagen he was glad he finally got his new Packers jacket because he will need it for the Packers game the following week.
Haboush and the staff at Chain O’Lakes Bar and Grill brought out green and gold balloons and told him that he is finally going to get to experience Lambeau Field, and watch his favorite football team live and in person.

“I was stunned,” Loewenhagen said. “They never even gave me a hint they had been working on that for a year to get it all squared away with the management here and getting all the stuff together to make it work.”

Game day
Loewenhagen said he got to enjoy the full Lambeau game day experience, complete with tailgating, with burgers grilled by Dennis Pochinski, a member of the Chain Bar community, pictures in front of the iconic photo locations like the giant Lombardi trophy and the Lambeau leap wall.
“The atmosphere, the people that stopped and thanked him for his service, the Packer band that played for him, it was just so cool,” Haboush said.
Loewenhagen and the Chain O’Lakes Bar & Grill crew made their way to a booth to get Loewenhagen a button that said “My first Packer game,” which he proudly wore on his new Packers jacket.

Loewenhagen said his seats were right in the end zone and were amazing, and was grateful he was able to witness a Packer win, with the game being against the Cincinnati Bengals on Oct. 12.
“It was just a special day,” Loewenhagen said. “I can’t thank Danny and the crew enough for doing what they did for me.”
Haboush said the post on the Chain O’Lakes Bar & Grill Facebook page had over 50,000 views, and was loaded with heartfelt comments about the amazing surprise and the generosity of the bar and patrons who helped realize the veteran’s dream.
Haboush said he wants to keep the tradition going and try to get at least one disabled veteran to a Packer game a year.