A Cincinnati firefighter was honored on Saturday as hundreds of cars were present in his honor and to help his family.
Daryl Gordon died five years ago when he was trying to rescue people from a burning apartment building in Madisonville.
After some years of Gordon’s death, Carl Whalen organized car shows to honor the men and women who have died in the line of duty while they were trying to help the people.
For this year, Gordon family was chosen by Whalen to be the focus of their help.
Saturday’s show in Amelia raised over $2,000 for the fallen firefighter’s family.
“This is Operation Never Forget, which is our auto show and we title it The Back the Heroes Car Show and then we have Operation Open Arms, which is a community initiative where we fund and assist underfunded local police and fire departments with safety equipment or things that help them do their job and make it home safe to their families,” Whalen said.
The event has been taking place for two years and has grown immensely, Whalen said.
“We started off with only having a few hundred followers and our first car show last year we had 167 vehicles,” Whalen said. “Most car shows in their first year may only have 40, 50, 60 cars and they call that a good show.”
Whalen says it is not just the Greater Cincinnati area reserved for this year’s auto show. He says support came from the whole country this year.
“We’ve got people coming up from Tennessee for our show, we got someone who drove four-hours from Sandusky in a Humber Super to come out to the show,” said Whalen. “These people really love their heroes and they’re showing it today and we really appreciate their support.”
Not only did Gordon’s family got a $2,081 check they were also presented with a commemorative plaque in memory of the firefighter.
