Obviously, I've neglected this blog since last February! Shame on me. It seems like most of our club activity information has been posted on our Facebook page all year instead of on this blog. Regardless, it's time to catch up on an important summer long activity. As indicated in the February entry, we announced a fund raising project in May at the Kathy Weed Memorial Safety Inspection held at Downs Custom Performance Automotive. Our special guest at that event was Tiffany Carr, Director of Community and Member Relations at the Grand Rapids Veterans Home. Tiffany helped us kick off our TV's for Vets campaign which was a summer long campaign of soliciting donations from fellow hot rodders and car show enthusiasts. Someone from our club made it a point to always have a donation canister displayed at weekly cruise ins at Fricano's Pizza on Alpine and Culvers in Cascade as well as at the many car shows we attended throughout the summer. Over 200 residents of the GR Veterans Home are without a TV in their rooms and it was our goal to raise funds to help fund TV's for some of these folks. As the summer neared an end, Tiffany informed us that the Federal Government had approved a grant in the amount of $70,000 to fully fund these TV's. Our focus then shifted to providing TV's for the dining rooms and alcove areas in the Veterans Home that are used for group movies and quiet areas for some of the more mentally challenged residents. We ended the campaign having raised $2040.00 and were making plans for the equipment purchase when another major donation was handed to us. The Casino Club in north Grand Rapids had some excess money in a fund that had been used to send gift boxes to active military personnel serving overseas. With the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, they had no overseas personnel to service. Their Casino Club Trooper Box had $1500 left that was added to our $2040 for a grand total of $3540! We were also given a contact name at the Best Buy store on Alpine and that young man spearheaded an effort to maximize our purchase.
This morning, five members of the ClassiX Street Rod Association met at Best Buy to finalize the purchase, load the equipment and deliver everything to the GR Veterans Home. Three of us still had not put our cars away so we had a mini caravan to make the delivery. The final tally of equipment donated was: 3 - 55" Sharp TV's, 2 - 40" Samsung TV's, 5 wall mount brackets and 12 Samsung Blue Ray dvd players. The 55" units will be installed in the dining areas and the 40" units will be for alcoves. Five of the dvd players will be installed with the TV's while the remaining seven will be added to some other select residences within the facility. As a club, we would like to sincerely thank Doug Fricano and his staff at Fricano's Pizza as well as Steve Stephan, the Culvers owner for helping us promote this very worthwhile program. We couldn't have done this without the generosity of all our fellow car loving friends who dropped cash in the cans all summer long. A BIG tip o' the straw hat to each and every one of those who helped make a difference in lives of those Veterans.
Left to right above are club members Phil Viviano, Pete Derridinger, Jon Hansen, Rick Nielsen and Steve Melville. Steve furnished his truck to transport the donation from Best Buy to the Veterans Home.
