SUN 'n FUN VETTES

Tampa, FL

5-20-06

Special Olympics at Children’s Home

It was beautiful day for our annual Olympics event at the Children’s Home this year.  The kids seemed to have a great time and I know we did.  I can’t really do justice to it all with the pictures I took because we can’t broadcast pictures of the kids.  So I had to go for distance shots or for shots which didn’t show the kids’ faces.  If you weren’t there, I hope you’ll get the idea of how much fun we had from the pictures taken.

We had 18 cars show up and made a nice splash when we cruised in, lined up in the staging area and did the parade thing with the kids.

The parade meant a lot to the kids.  They were really excited about the cars and being able to get “up close and personal” with them.  Each car had one of the kids from a particular cottage ride in it and the other kids from the same cottage walked along behind with their cottage’s banner.  We had a lot more cars than they had cottages, so I guess each cottage was represented by several cars.  From the excitement they showed it was a pretty big deal to them.  The kid who rode with me was just about beside himself with excitement and I imagine it was like that for all the riders.  The excitement was contagious and I think all the drivers must have felt like they were something pretty special too.  We paraded from the staging area to the drop off point in front of the main building where the kids got out and had their award ceremonies.  While that was going on, we drove over closer to the picnic area and parked the cars.

We had a lot of vettes there. 

Some, pretty unusual.  Someone told me what year this vette was, but I can’t remember.  But, very cool !!

Well, the fire rescue guys sure came to our rescue.  They really made a major contribution to the effort.  We owe Chris and his guys a big vote of thanks.  Maybe they’ll make a habit of joining us for these events.

The firefighter / cooks got busy cooking burgers and dogs,

and before long the serving lines were cranked up.

and the chow hounds got started.

We had a lot of games set up for the kids to work off some of the energy they got from all that good food.  But, the big attraction for the kids was

that big shiny fire engine.  The fire rescue guys even let the kids sit in it and turned on the flashing lights and siren for them.  It was a huge hit with the kids.

Here you can see a couple of the kids enjoying the big fire engine.

So, we found out that firefighters and vette drivers mix very well. . . .

 . . . . as do their vehicles.

We had a great time.  If you missed it, we’re sorry.  You really missed something special.