The First Settlers’ annual caravan from Checkered Flag Porsche to the Mayflower Marathon in Virginia Beach has become one of our favorite events. In 2018, the weekend event on the Saturday before Thanksgiving got even bigger with our coordination with the Shenandoah Region for a food drive in the Richmond area.
Our members really step up every year around the holidays to give back to our communities and help people in need.
Prepping for the event at Checkered Flag has become a routine; but one with great attention to detail. The staff really rolls out the ‘red carpet’ by cleaning the floor of the Service Bay entrance with a scrubber and pulling tables from their classroom. The lunch treats provided by the Club included lumpia and chocolate brownies from Papa John’s (who knew they made great desert to go along with their pizza??). Team Kopp pitched in again this year by running the weigh scales and counting the turkeys lifted from trunks and back seats. The tallies are kept secret until the big reveal at the end. The atmosphere is fun and the car-watching through the Service Bays is too. “Hey, when did you get that car!?”.
When the scoring was complete at Checkered Flag our numbers were impressive yet again. $8,926 in cash – and that total did not rely on our usual charity profits made from the Air & Auto Classic Car Show. We collected 5241 pounds of food including 246 frozen birds. The winners of the Porsche pedal car, donated by Checkered Flag to the car with the most food by weight, were Jerry and Kathy Kent with 382 pounds of non-perishable food in their Boxster. The couple that brought the most turkeys were Vince and Teresa Canepa with 25 included in their 357 pounds of food in their Boxster. (I’m making this comment from memory but pretty sure Boxsters have won this competition every year except one when top honors went to a 944!)
Our members out west joined with the Shenandoah Region for a Turkeys in the Trunk event in Richmond. Their numbers brought our total contribution to nearly $11,000 in cash, over 5530 pounds of food and over 270 turkeys. That food will feed a lot of hungry people! Congratulations to Tim Ashbridge for bringing the most food and winning the Porsche jacket donated by Euroclassics Porsche.
After our drive-by at the Mayflower Marathon to unload all the food and hand them a big check our caravan drove through the Suffolk and Isle of Wight countryside, to the home of Brian and Janice Woodard. Janice put on an amazing spread of food and has a wonderful knack for holiday decorating. Everything was beautiful! Even the garage! We spread out across the house and fire pits in the backyard and on the porch and made ourselves at home for the evening.
Thanks to Brian for breaking out his brand new bottle of Henry McKenna’s Kentucky Bourbon so we could sample the flavor of the whiskey ranked #2 in a blind taste test (not sorry we didn’t leave you very much……)
Thanks to all our members who come out for this event and show their generosity and compassion during the holidays! It’s lots of fun but more importantly it’s lots of “good”. See you next year!
