Since its inception in 2010, PALS has arranged more than 3,700 flights, Minogue said — about 200 flights per month — and made use of some 300 volunteer pilots. The pilot-patient relationships, she said, are what make the organization so special. “It’s part of the healing treatment,” Minogue said. “It’s more than a flight.”

And the Hoffmans aren’t the only East Meadow connection to PALS. The East Meadow Kiwanis Club has made several charitable contributions to the organization since 2010. Minogue, who belongs to Massapequa Kiwanis, met Mitchell Allen, a past president of the East Meadow club, after she gave a presentation about PALS years ago at a Kiwanis meeting. Allen said he “took an immediate liking to the concept,” and arranged for East Meadow to get involved. “If you’re a Kiwanian, you’re an altruistic individual by heart,” Allen said. “Anything like this is 100 percent altruism.”

‘A tight-knit family’

The Hoffmans live in Warren’s childhood home on Richmond Road. Warren, a Barnum Woods Elementary and Woodland Middle School alum, graduated from East Meadow High School in 1977, and studied law at Hofstra University.

He and Lori married in 1996. She is originally from Bergen County, New Jersey, and works from home as a travel agent. They have two children, Kyle and Melanie — who are less than three months apart in age — from previous relationships. Warren and Lori met when their children were 4, and married a year later. Both kids graduated from East Meadow High in 2009. “We grew up as a tight-knit family,” Warren said. “All four of us together.”

That closeness is just one of the many things they have come to appreciate more deeply thanks to their experience with PALS. “You think about what [the patients] have been through … they’ve overcome so much to get where they are,” Warren said. “It actually makes what we do so much better, knowing we’re doing a little something to help them out.”

To learn more about PALS, visit www.palservices.org.