December 4, 2004:

MINIs Making-A-Wish

Back from a long weekend in Rhode Island, including meeting 35 other MINIs for MINIs-Making-A-Wish (a repeat of this event held last year).
On a cool Saturday morning, we drove to the southern end of Rhode Island and met up with everyone at Steve Scales home. There was coffee, a raffle for the unique Whalen shift knob (congratulations Jeff, thanks Gavin for the pic), Santa hats and meet & greet with other MINI owners.

An excellent drive had been planned, taking us all through various back roads of Rhode Island, including a stop at “Rhode Islands largest body of fresh water” - in a couple of places we had police to assist with crossing traffic, and we even had an escort up 15 miles of Route 95!

After a stop at Krispy Kreme (very long lines for the bathroom!), where the toy collection launch occurred a month ago …

… we finally arrived at the Make-A-Wish headquarters and delivered 1400 toys! Steve also presented $2500 raised by the Whalen raffle and by other activities including the sale of “wishes” organized by his daughter Jessica - very impressive!

Here is a group pic, taken by Gavin - thanks!

(click for 2048×988 360K pic)
We finished the day with a late lunch and lots more chats - hello Steve (*2), Max, John, Gene, Diane, Jared, Rich, Gavin, and everyone else.
Steve (PinCity) posted a final summary of the event here: 1,409 Toys, $2,501.10 Donations, Fun with you guys…… priceless!
Rich’s write-up of the event includes the Providence Journal newspaper article
Here are all my pics
Other peoples gallery links:
Gavins here and here
Rich’s here
Benzamg pics
Harveys pics here
Jareds pics
Peter (Upticks) pics
Pics from Jester’s Mom
And if you want to know where the pajamas came from, I got them from Jeff at MINI Swag: