Wheelers for the Wounded

[Valkyrie]

Hey guys, long time no hear! I hope everyone is doing well!

For those that don't know me, my name is Chris King, and I am with the Toyota Trail Riders in Texas.

I am heading up TTR's participation & fundraising in support of Wheelers for the Wounded.

Jason Havlik is a former soldier who is now a contractor in Iraq, and has started an organization to host wheeling events for wounded veterans and to raise funds for wounded veteran programs.

Wheelers for the Wounded is part of a non-profit organization with the goal of providing a weekend of off-roading and camping to our country’s wounded military members all over the United States.

The events will start criss-crossing the US at the end of the year. TTR and TTORA will host the event at BMRA on April 25 & 26, 2009.

I spoke with Jason (from Fallujah) yesterday, and he asked me if I had any contacts in Arizona that might be interested in supporting this project and hosting an event on the route next year, so here I am.

Let me know what y'all think, and thanks for listening.

[Kaistie]

Awsome man!! The Az boys could show them how we "Roll" in the desert!!

[azrain]

Chris,

Let me be the second person to say HELL YES WE WOULD!

There's a fair amount of vets on this board, it would be my personal honor and service to help with an event such as this. As the self appointed, unofficial chef of Camp Clittora, I will make sure troop are well fed on the trail and at camp.

[AZrockbum]

We could easily out draw azrocks attendance with an event like that. I am absolutely in to help out.

[*ROKTOY*]

Yep, I down.

[HoldMyOwn32]

Hey guys, I would love to help with something like that. My trucks mostly stock, but I'd romp the h3ll out of it if you want to be a passenger as well!

[4xClover]

Chris,

It would be an honor to help out with this...count me in for sure!!

[Mark in Az]

For sure!

I'll look at the program & we'll come up with a plan

[Valkyrie]

It is great to see the willingness to support this!

Sign up on the WFTW board and let Jason know you're ready to spearhead an Arizona event.

I don't know if The Arizona Land Cruiser Association is real active or not, does anyone know any of them? I posted up HERE and got 24 views with no replies.

Keep in mind that the success of this depends on just two things:
1. A great turnout of wheelers. Keep the event open to all clubs, all makes, and all skill levels.
2. A great turnout of vets. This is probably the hardest part, since for obvious reasons veterans info is fairly well safeguarded. Local Vet counseling areas, VA hospitals, American Legion, VFW Posts... maybe even talk to your local military recruiters?

Obviously, we want to have as many as possible attend the events and enjoy themselves, but the fund raising is just as important, so don't get discouraged if y'all find it difficult to get a lot of our heroes out to the event.

This looks like a good place to start asking questions: http://www.azdvs.gov.

Also, try here: http://www.dav.org/volunteers/hsc_information.html. In fact, there's a page listing all the DAV groups in Arizona and their meeting times. With a year to coordinate this, I would think that some savvy management and motivated folks could find a way to hit almost every meeting at least twice.

Printing up flyer's to take and hand out (again, recruiting offices are a great place to start) is probably the easiest and most effective means of spreading the message.

These are the same steps we have to take in each state to try & get the word out to wounded vets.

Thanks for the enthusiastic support... I'll keep checking in and of course, I'll help as best I can.

[Mark in Az]

The Copper State Crusiers usually have a good turnout.

http://forum.ih8mud.com/az-copper-state-cruisers/

[Valkyrie]

According to Jason today, Disabled Explorers has signed up to host the Arizona event. This makes things a little easier on y'all, so maybe you could focus on raising veteran's awareness and fundraising, without having the stress of putting the whole thing together on your own.

From what I understand, they are planning more of a backroads tour through the desert and ghost towns. While it will not be necessarily a "challenging" run, it will be a nice run that won't guarantee damage to the vehicle. Teaming up with Disabled Explorers will be good because they've got guys who have lost legs and use hand controls to drive, which would be good info for some of our wounded vets who might want to drive.

I also posted in Copper States forum, thanks for the heads up!

[D_ROC72]

I'm full time active duty in the Air Force here at Luke AFB I'm involved i quite a few organizations with my base and i will be more than willing to do some leg work at Luke to get together a bunch of active duty guys that wheel to participate in this event. most of them will be jeep guys but i guess for this event I'll invite them too.