RUMC Car Wash-a-Thon, 2010 ...

On two consecutive Saturdays in the Fall of 2010 (9/25 and 10/2), RUMC volunteers spent their entire day washing cars for free.  Rather, than having a traditional car wash, this event was a "Car Wash-a-Thon".

The goal of our "Car Wash-a-Thon" was to raise money to cover the medical expenses of a church family whose head was fighting against cancer.  Although the family had health insurance, certain expensive and critical test procedures were not covered.  We wanted to raise $4,000 to cover the pre-payment costs for these tests.

The success of our "Car Wash-a-Thon" depended upon three factors:

• Volunteers to wash cars--lots of cars.  We wanted to wash 400 cars over the two Saturdays.
  

• People to provide us with vehicles to wash--free of charge.  We needed an ample supply of cars, trucks, vans, SUV's and anything on wheels.  The actual car wash was free, so people could return again and again if they wanted to.  In this regard, we got lots of support from not only our own church membership, but also from our friends and neighbors, and from people who just drove by and wanted to help.
  

• Finally, we needed people to make pledges.  We were looking for total pledges of $10 per car.  Our crazy math was that if we washed 400 cars at $10 each, we would reach our financial goal.
  

As it turned out, although our volunteers worked non-stop from before 9 AM to after 5 PM on both Saturdays, we were only able to wash 176 vehicles.  That was the disappointing news.  However, the good news was that people were more than generous with their contributions.  By mid-October, our Car Wash-a-Thon had raised more than $4600.

The pictures below were taken by Tim and Anita Lloyd who supported this effort on both Saturdays.  We had crisp fall weather (for Florida) on both days, and everyone survived their ordeal.  There was lots of good fellowship and wet, soapy fun!

We thank and praise God for the chance to make a positive difference in the lives of one of our church families.