In early March Co-Founder Fred Behrens made a motion to the Board to pledge $1000 to give gloves, bonnets, masks, Clorox wipes and what ever other safety supplies that the Police, Fire and Hospital workers needed to stay safe while doing their jobs. After it was passed unanimously we began what could be one of the greatest campaigns that CASSH CHARITY has an may ever have. Once we put what we were doing on Facebook donations started pouring into our site as well as on facebook. Within days we had tripled the pledge through donations. by 2 weeks we had enough donations to make the pledge over 5 times as much.
With Fred leading the way and through help by Pat Montalbano, Jan Dirindin, Milan Kruszynski, Greg Erminger and Fred’s Children and Jan’s two Boys we were able to procur 6500 pairs of gloves, 123 containers of Clorox Wipes, 179 Spray bottles, 2100 Surgical Bonnets, 91 cases of water and pop, 34 gallons of bleach, 1200 ounces of individually wrapped treats that made up 1100 bags of treats for the workers at the hospital, the police and fire.
As the donations began to cool, Fred came up with another fundraiser for this campaign and began selling outside signs like the ones below to help keep the campaign going
These sold like wild fire and we were once again in business. One thing led to another and before long we had AMERICAN STRONG, UNITED WE STAND, MEMORIAL DAY, MOTHERS DAY, BIRTHDAY and Fathers Day Signs for sale. At the time of this printing Fred and His Crew have sold nearly 900 signs of the various types and believe with the sale this weekend (May 29 and May 30) will surpass the 1000 sign goal.
There have been many great situations come out of this including the local businesses getting involved. One of the greatest happened on one of the Tuesdays when sign shop was set up at Madvek’s Dog House in South Hammond and the Police and Firemen were invited to stop and get a Hot Dog (or Polish) Fries and a drink free of charge just to say thank you. Owners Mary and Dick White not only sponsored the event but allowed Fred, Steve, Tom White and Jen Klapak sell signs. All toll 107 signs were sold that day
We were so fortunate to have great support from places like Herrara’s Towing, Hyman’s Ace Hardware in Whiting, Guy McCoy of McCoys & Sons Towing, 4 Seasons Sewer and Plumbing and Owner and President Billy Taylor, Jerry Bales, Region Signs in Whiting and the list goes on including WJOB Radio.
During the sign sales we had anonymous donors want signs to go to 1st Responders and CAASH CHARITY helpers from outside the Northwest Indiana region. They suggested that if there were 1st responders that had also played for Coach Ridgley or were in his classes we should mail them a sign and get their picture. To date we have mailed over a dozen and had 4 pictures come back already and are expecting the others soon. Here are the first ones to respond
There are so many pictures of this campaign that should be seen but I will stop here and simply put in our Newsletter that was sent out about the campaign.
