The Friday night cruise at VA BBQ in
Fredericksburg, VA would be an iffy deal….the weatherguessers were saying the
major rain storms were going to stay south….about 30 miles from the cruise….so
that meant it could rain within a thousand miles somewhere! I checked the radar maps of 5 different sites
and felt comfortable that the weatherguessers might be correct this
time! So we loaded the cooler up with
water, put a fire in the belly of the farm truck and motored south.
After we
set up our little camp the sky started getting real black and ugly….but it WAS
going west to east and it looked like it may stay a little south of
us….whew! As the evening was unfolding
more and more cruisers came to visit.
Kandy’s zombie apocalypse response Jeep made an appearance and Kandy
gave us a demonstration on how to use the long reach tactical response weapon (air
rifle)….I think she enjoys her cars waaay too much! The green ’37 Chevy Pro Street sedan was very
interesting as was the stone stock beige ’62 Ford Falcon. The TR-6 with the Webers was just too cool
then the radically painted & slammed Chevy dually crew cab came in….niice….
John and his drop dead gorgeous, almost
black ’37 Chevy coupe met up with the very nicely done black ’39 Chevy
coupe….what a photo op! Then another NY
transplant showed up with his gunmetal grey ’52 Chevy PU…. another farm
truck! A lot of new Mopars too….the lime
green Challenger with the Shaker hood caught my eye….if I only had a job….hee
hee hee It was a good night at the Q with
over 50 special rides joining in on the festivities….oh yeah, we were
celebrating something….it was the “Collector Car
Appreciation Day”….you did celebrate it too….didn’t you?
I belong to a small group of guys that
raise money & awareness to Fisher House Foundation, it’s called Cruisin For
Heroes. We accomplish that by providing
a gaggle of special vehicles to business events for a donation to Fisher House
Foundation. We also organize over the
road cruises to vehicle centric locations and/or restaurants. We ask the participants of the cruises to
consider Fisher House Foundation when they are doing their yearly charity
giving. We have been working this
process for about seven years now and it’s finally starting to roll. In January this year we made the first
contact with Marie at Morais Vineyard and Winery to explore putting on an event
in the summer. After over 300 emails,
numerous phone calls, personal invitations and a few visits to the Winery after
our first meeting, we accomplished the event on Saturday the 12th.
As with any long range planned event,
weather is always a factor. Planned rain
dates are an option but in our experience they don’t work nearly as well as the
original date of the event. Saturday
unfolded as a chamber of commerce, postcard perfect day. High puffy white clouds on a deep blue sky….a
gentle breeze and temps in the mid to high 80’s. Some of the invited people began their
journey early in the morning to the event from West Virginia and Maryland as
well as Virginia. The volunteers began
arriving around 9AM and the last one was in place around Noon. We had commitments from 31 people to support
us on the 12th….we had 8 people drop out for various reasons and two
people ask to join us the day before so we ended up with 25 display vehicles.
The purpose of the display was to generate
interest and provide another incentive for potential customers to visit the Winery. Our display volunteers have agreed to bring
their special vehicle to the event to help convince potential customers to
visit the Winery and to showcase the Fisher House Foundation. Our volunteers know it will be a day of
interacting with the spectators, answering questions about their vehicles and
sharing the Fisher House story with them to raise awareness of what Fisher
House does. It is also hoped that when
the spectators know what Fisher House Foundation is, they will feel compelled
to donate, either at the event or at some time in the future. All of the above happens because our
volunteers come out and support us. They
believe in the mission of Fisher House and help us share it with others. We had $375 in our donation barrel at the end
of the day! Morais Winery & Vineyard
donated $700 to Fisher House Foundation which was $500 for our fixed fee and another
$200 from a percentage of the day’s business!
One of our volunteers, Denny, who makes custom wine bottle stoppers and he
donates 100% of his sales to the Fisher House Foundation. His donation check from Saturday was $450! The donation from Bad to the Bone food vendor
was $100. The donation to Fisher House from Funnel Cake Recess is $41.60. It was a great day for Fisher House Foundation
and Cruisin For Heroes, $1,666.60 of help for our Military Warriors....it really
was a win-win day.
Be sure to check out the pictures here; https://www.flickr.com/photos/53063560@N05/sets/72157653480001593
No comments:
Post a Comment