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AHCA clubs make Caravan for Kids a success!!
The mock check presentation for $16,001 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation® on July 1 during the popularity car show at Conclave 2008 in San Diego concluded the Austin-Healey Club of America Cross Country Caravan for Kids but not fundraising efforts by AHCA clubs for the balance of the calendar year. Since then, additional checks have been received and forwarded to Make-A-Wish, bringing the total so far raised to just over $16,565.
Thanks again to members of the 16 regional clubs across the continent who already generously supported the effort to benefit children facing life-threatening medical conditions; and to those clubs that have plans for further fundraising efforts.
Greg Lauser
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Cross Country Caravan geared up for kids
Local AHCA clubs raise $16,001 for Make-Wish Foundation®; drivers hope to inspire more AHCA fundraisers for Make-Wish
Several regional AHCA clubs generously supported the Cross Country Caravan for Kids by raising $16,001 during the drive by a trio of national club officers to Conclave 2008 in San Diego.
“We were very impressed by the generosity of club members, their families, friends and employers as we drove across the continent,” said AHCA President Carl Brown, who joined Gary Brierton and Greg Lauser on the transcontinental trek. “Those contributions have provided a good foundation of philanthropy on which to build added success.”
In addition to money already received for The Make-A-Wish Foundation, upcoming events planned by various AHCA clubs are expected to raise additional funds for local Make-A-Wish chapters. All money pledged and collected until the end of the calendar year will be used to fulfill wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions.
“The cross-country drive was a symbolic way of creating excitement among our local clubs about helping fulfill wishes of children in their own regions,” Brierton said. “The Make-A-Wish Foundation has chapters all over the continent for our clubs to work with so that funds raised in their own backyards are put to work there.”
“A mock check for the total raised by clubs before and during the drive was presented to Make-A-Wish on July 1 at the Conclave Car Show. Now, it’s time for clubs that haven’t already done so to contact their local Make-A-Wish chapters and keep the ball rolling,” Lauser said. “Fundraisers during the remainder of the year should be done in conjunction with or for local Make-A-Wish chapters, so proceeds of local fundraisers can be presented directly to those chapters.”
Lauser noted that although the Minnesota club’s formal fundraiser won’t be until mid-August, club members and complete strangers already made generous contributions to the Caravan. “Nancy and I were having breakfast downtown the morning I left to join Gary and Carl near St. Louis, when another customer asked if the Healey out front was mine. I told him it was and he said he’d just bought a Healey100 as part of a collection in Pensacola, Florida. He asked about the Caravan logo magnets I’d put on the doors of my 3000 and I told him I was leaving on the fundraising drive after breakfast.
“After we chatted a bit longer and I gave him a membership application to join the Minnesota and national clubs, he responded by saying he wanted to get my trip started right. With that, he handed me a $100 bill,” Lauser said. “That’s definitely the kind of generous people we need as new club members.”
During the Caravan, several clubs arranged meetings and meals for our intrepid travelers. Before Wanda and Gary left for Vermont, the Corsa Rosa driving club in Winston-Salem, N.C. hosted Gary’s home AHCA club (Triad) and added their donations. When Gary & Wanda arrived in Bennington, Vt. a “Kick-off” event hosted by the AHC of New England at Hemming’s Motor News was attended by over 20 members (with Healeys) and checks were collected. Back in Charlotte, the Carolinas and Atlanta AHC clubs fed Gary & Carl and added their dollars to the Make-a-Wish Foundation. After leaving Charlotte, the Smokey Mountain, Bluegrass, Ohio Valley, Middle Tennessee, Central Indiana and Northern Indiana clubs gave money and hosted Carl and Gary.
AHCA Vice President of Conclaves Jim Frakes stumbled on an innovative way of raising funds. In addition to friends and employees pledging money for miles he and Karen drove on their loop through Indiana, one joker who has worked for him for many year added a special incentive. He told Jim that he’d pay an extra $20 a day for every day Jim stayed away from the office.
When Greg Lauser came down from Minnesota to join Carl and Gary, he brought contributions from the Minnesota and Midwest Region club members who met him for dinner near Savanna, Ill.
Approximately 15 members and several Healeys from the Gateway AHC Club hosted the “Three Amigos” for dinner on June 20 in Pacific, Mo. Enroute to Bolivar, Mo., the next day the trio stopped in Jefferson City to capture photos of their cars in front of the state capitol. While there, a lady approached Gary and said, “I don’t want to offend you, sir, but my granddaughter thinks you’re Santa Claus. Would you mind posing for a picture with her?”
Although the woman explained that her granddaughter was normally very shy, she leapt into Gary’s arms when he offered to pick her up. Everyone enjoyed that wonderful moment on the steps of the state capitol – particularly Gary, who often plays Santa Claus back home in North Carolina.
As we pulled off the toll road in Wichita the toll booth operator noticed Carl’s Make-a-Wish sticker on the door and told him the organization had granted her sons wish.
We heard this type story all along the way. Gary met a Make-A-Wish beneficiary and her grandfather, who is an AHCA member, in Bennington, Vt. In Knoxville, Tenn., where the Smokey Mountain Club and Gerry Coker were the center of television and broadcast media attention during a gathering there, Carl and Gary met another AHCA member whose grandson had his wish fulfilled by Make-A-Wish. As an aspiring young writer, the child wanted to meet a child author whose books he had greatly enjoyed. Make-a-Wish made it happen.
During the SpringThing event in May, a member of the Middle Tennessee and Bluegrass clubs had told the wish fulfillment story of his son. He also was at the luncheon attended by clubs from Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee in Leavenworth, Ind. Gary is confident that his sharing of that story, helped inspire very generous contributions from those clubs at the luncheon.
After overnighting in Wichita, Kan., and Guymon, Okla., “The Three Amigos” were treated by about 15 members of The Roadrunner Club to a New Mexican dinner in Albuquerque the evening of the June 24. Dave Porter of that club donated an original Healey 100 Owners/Service Manual as an auction item for Make-A-Wish during Conclave. While at Conclave, acquaintances were renewed with several members of the Roadrunner Club, including Judy Wrobel who’s 100M – affectionately known as “Agatha” – won a First Place trophy in the Popularity Car Show.
The trio left early the next morning for Flagstaff, Ariz., to avoid the increasing heat being encountered. They arrived early enough to prevail on a hotel employee to snap a picture of the trio and their cars.
Up at dawn the next day, the three intrepid travelers were intent on traveling historic parts of Route 66 between Seligman and Kingman, Ariz. They also stopped briefly in Kingman to be interviewed by a reporter for the local newspaper and to take their own pictures before a mothballed steel plant outside of town that Greg helped establish in the 1990s. From there, it was on to Laughlin, Nev., and down to Lake Havasu City, Ariz., where it was 107 degrees when we arrived at 1 p.m.
That evening the trio was hosted by about 50 members of the Cruisers Club of Lake Havasu City, an event arranged by Judy and Ted Hardy who also are members of Utah’s Bonneville AHC. Bonneville AHCA delegate Dave Maxwell had alerted them to the caravan and it was invited to stop there. The restaurant parking lot was overflowing with classic American Iron and four Austin-Healeys. As the trio and their hosts munched sandwiches in air-conditioned comfort, the thermometer on a bank down the block rose to 114 degrees by 7 p.m.!
A final dawn departure, found Carl, Gary and Greg on the last segment of the trip to San Diego and a collision course with the furnace known as the Mojave Desert. Despite the heat encountered there and during the two days that preceded it, all three BJ8s performed well without overheating.
An added benefit of the caravan was increased awareness of the Austin-Healey Club of America, appreciation for its philanthropic endeavor and at least three new members signed up by the Smoky Mountain Club during the luncheon it hosted.
The caravan tally was $16,001 raised for Make-A-Wish and zero mechanical problems. That included the wonderful contributions of local club members, special auction items generously donated by John and Caryl Sprinzel and Dave Porter and AHCA contributions.
“Ongoing fund-raising efforts through the end of the year by local clubs can make the caravan total just the ‘tip of the iceberg’ for AHCA contributions to Make-A-Wish and we hope that will be the case,” Brown said.
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