In April Woody Boater ran a series of stories about the special Military Appreciation Event that was successfully organized at the Marine Corps Air Station New River by our friends Randy & Ginger Clark and the nice folks at the Blue Ridge Chapter ACBS.
Last week Ginger received an e-mail from Al Olsen, President of the Blue Ridge Chapter ACBS that made her day, it read…
“Randy & Ginger – We had an auction at the Lake Hartwell show and raised $375.00 so we decided to include it with the $714.00 that we raised at the New River event, which will make a real nice contribution to the families in need.” – Al Olsen
Al & Bonne Olsen (above and below) from the 2011 Lake Hartwell Boat Show aboard “Norwegian Son” their very cool 1950 23′ Chris-Craft Holiday – Thanks Al & Bonne for all your help with the New River project.
We also have to extend a special thanks to all the volunteers and boat owners that made this new event a success. Boat owners from Blue Ridge, Sunnyland, RDC/Triangle, Chesapeake Bay, Indian Lake and Water Wonderland ACBS Chapters all contributed their time, energy and classic boats for this unique military appreciation event. We know the families will appreciate all the help and contributions raised from the events.
And thanks again to fellow Woody Boaters Randy, Ginger, Cody & Sadie for your vision and commitment to the project.
OoRAH!!
Al & Bonne Olsen were also the folks that helped tow Phil Jones and his crippled Shepherd back to shore during the Lake Hartwell Boat Show, preventing it from sinking to the bottom of Lake Hartwell… Al & Bonne have certainly done their fare share of good deeds for this year!
Images for this story courtesy of Robert & Linda Miracle, Miracle Photography.
Texx
Antique boaters – there’s no better group of people in the world!!!
Way to go Dad and Bonnie! Proud to be your son!
That is so sweet!
They are certainly setting the bar very high for the rest of us.
Thanks to Randy, Ginger and the Blue Ridge Chapter for supporting such a great cause.
And thanks to Al & Bonnie for saving Phil!
Kudos to Randy but we all know who does the “heavy lifting” behind the scenes and Ginger get the gold for “pumping the iron” to finalize all the plans for this event. Shows are difficult enough to plan, let alone a first time show and from outside the actual area, I’m blown away at how successful the event was. All this and it was actually so close to being shut down at the last minute with the federal budget crisis.
Thanks also to Woodyboater for your media blitz in support of this event as well. Can’t say enough about how well everything unfolded due to everyone’s hard work.
Thank you Victor for the kind words!
But it wasn’t us…it was Blue Ridge Chapter, especially Al Olsen, Ed Longino, the Smith family & Jennifer Mosher and it was Richard Cole & Sam O’Leary with the Marines; their hard work made our dream come true!
It was the boaters who came to the event from several chapters and the ones who were with us in spirit that really made it truly special for our Marines.
And it was the Miracles & WoodyBoater for telling the story…
I’m afraid if everyone knew how wonderful the Marines were to work with and how easy they made it for us…y’all might make me give my “halo” back!
You keep wearing that halo girl,you went on and above the call of duty putting on that event. We can’t wait to go back next year.