Howdy All
Well believe it or not another of year wheeling has gone by! I had a
great Christmas and New Year.
I thought I had made it through Y2K until I turned my GPS on Sunday the
2nd. I wanted to check it out before a few of us went out exploring.
Just after I turned it on I saw all of my info that I had in the memory
get wiped out. O well I should have written down all my waypoints so I
could have reloaded it after, live and learn I guess.
I want to THANK EVERYONE that participated in OUR Community Projects last
year. There will be no way I can list every ones name so I will just say
THANKS TO EVERY ONE that took the time to get involved!!!!!!!!!!!
Here are some of the things that WE did:
In April Bill Barnes, Dave Brill and myself started talking about doing
something in Deputy Chief John Murphy's memory who lost his life while
fighting a fire with the Russell Fire Department on Tekoa Mt. We came up
with the idea of doing a plaque/donation. We have had three plaques made:
one will go up on the mountain; one will go to the Russell Fire
Department; and the other will go to Deputy Chief Murphy's Family. We will
also be doing donations to the Murphy's (or a donation in his name) and
also to the Russell Fire Department. We have collected close to $1300.00
so far for this plaque/donation. We will be doing this donation in April,
so if you would like to make a donation, please contact me.
Also in April Nutmeg State 4 Wheelers were doing a trail ride in the
Russell, MA. Area. As we were going up Rt. 20 we came upon the Russell
Fire Department doing a boot collection. We all made donations totaling
close to $100.00.
We had two region clubs put on their own events. In June Schoharie County
Jeep Club held JEEP FEST, and in August one of our new clubs to the
region, New England 4 Wheelers, put on the Trail Challenge.
In November Eastern 4 Wheelers opened up one of their runs to me so we
could hold the Region Food Drive. This years food drive was to benefit the
Northampton Survival Center. The trail run was held at Lamention Mt. We
had 63 vehicles and around 90 people (from singles to families with their
kids). Seven of the region clubs were represented. We all had a good time,
no major breaks, and only a few problems with one of the locals. I left
the parking lot with the back end of my Cherokee dragging the ground with
all the food that was in it. When I got home I sorted it all out. We had
collected 600 Lbs. of food and $400.00 in cash.
Here's some info about the Northampton Survival Center: they are a private
nonprofit organization which provides free food, free clothing, and
referral services to people in need in Hampshire County, MA. The center is
playing a vital role in helping the county meet the growing challenges of
hunger, homelessness, and malnutrition.
If you would like more info, or wish to make a donation, please contact
me.
Also in November New England 4 Wheelers held a food drive to benefit the
Westfield Food Bank. They collected 189 items (I'm not sure of the weight
I was only told items) and $112.00 in cash.
Our Region was also involved with another food drive down in Dubious,
Penn., during the associations fall meeting. There was a collection to
benefit the Dubious Food Bank. We filled the back of a pick-up with food
(I would say about 400 Lbs. of food). The great part of this was Sugar
Fields getting a two car police escort for us. We had around 25 vehicles
and two cruisers parading though the center of town to deliver the food to
the food bank.
In December we held our regions second Toys-For-Tots collection. We had 40
vehicles show up all bearing gifts. I also had some individuals send me
money that I went to a local store and purchased toys with. Some clubs
sent gifts to me that I added into our donation.
Sgt. Austin showed up with two other Marines in full dress and a Suburban.
They had a Hummer also, but it broke down on the way-O well. Sgt. Austin
opened up the back door to the Suburban and we proceeded to fill the whole
vehicle with gifts, now I mean the whole back with all seats down, that's
a lot of toys!!!!!!
Some of you may already know about this project and have donated to it,
but to those that don't, here's some info on it:
We are taking donations so we can make some promotional videos. I am
hoping to make two Community Video's: one will be a video to show to towns
or landowners, it will be about 10 minutes or so long. The video will have
some footage of community projects and some info about ourselves. The
second video will be for broadcast. I'm hoping to get ESPN and local
channels. It will contain the same footage as the first video plus footage
of trail rides. I would like to see this video about an hour long or at
least one half hour long.
We will use some of the footage from the Trail Fest video and some that
didn't make it into that video, we have also shot some footage already of
other things so we are the road to making two great videos.
We have had someone step up to help us out with this project and offer
$1000.00, others have donated also but we are still in need of donations
for these videos.
If you would like to make a donation to this, please send your donation
to:
EC4WDA- Region D Video Fund
P.O. Box 42
Goffstown, NH 03045
Lastly I really want to THANK EVERYONE AGAIN for all of your kind
donations and I hope to see you all on the trail this year.
David M. Cleveland
Community Events
Chairperson, Region D
"dclevela@smith.edu".
413-527-0661 before 8PM Please