Cars for the Cure
Bugatti Veyron 16.4 photo by JC
Cars for the Cure is a car show for the cure of lung diseases. What makes this show so breath taking, no pun intended? It’s the sheer amount of exotic cars that pack the Lake Mary area shopping center for that cause. A total of 167 cars rolled into this cross shaped plaza including cars from Aston Martin, Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati, and Bugatti. Back to back and side to side these beastly four wheeled creatures stood, sporting v12 engines, turbochargers, and wide rubber tires. Some individual owners brought out their collection of cars, like Nelson Cambata who owns two Bugatti Veyrons. It was also nice to see institutions like the Central Florida Hospital showing the collection of Dr. Ben Kazim on their behalf. All of the collectors made sizable contributions for the cause.
The American Lung Association started this great car show six years ago with the help of Rob Hodgson, who is now President of the Central Florida Chapter of the American Lung Association. A close co-worker at Granny Nannies passed away from lung cancer so he started volunteering for the American Lung Association and soon started this 100% charity show as an alternative fund raiser. For the past six years almost all of the costs for the show have been donated including printing, advertising, and volunteers to run the show. Because of the huge amounts of donated work all money donations go towards research, education, and advocacy of lung health and lung disease. For example, these funds enable the Central Florida Chapter to go to elementary schools and educate the kids about proper lung health. If you would like to know more about the American Lung Association go to http://www.lungusa.org.
Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera photo by JC Magana
The show was a little windy this year but the cars still shined in the bright Florida sun and the kids still ran around pointing at the beautiful cars they saw gleaming in front of them. Walking around the extravagant paint jobs and chrome engines you could hear the sound of the singers and DJs and you could see the donation booths that gave out wine and beer to donors. Around 73 thousand dollars was raised, most of which comes from local dealerships like Fields Auto Group, Collier Jaguar, Lotus Orlando, and Courtesy Honda. The main contributor this year, as in the previous four years, was Classic Audi of Orlando. Last year the show took quite a hit with the fall of the market. Many dealerships could not afford to make their usual donation and they only collected 39 thousand dollars compared to 60 thousand in 2008. Some dealerships like Saturn and Pontiac won’t ever be able to make a donation again.
Cars for the Cure Logo
But this year the show was a great success and turned over a whopping 15 thousand guests, although not their highest of 20 thousand guests in 2009. The show is free and open to the public. Thanks to people like Eric Gray, Area Executive Director of the Central Florida chapter for the American Lung Association, and the volunteers that gave their time and energy to make this show happen it came without off without a flaw, but all is not done just yet. With a main committee of five to six people and growth of the show they have needed to expand. You don’t need to know about cars to volunteer, you just need the drive to help save some lives. When speaking with Eric Gray he said, “You can quote me. I run the show and I don’t know the first thing about cars”. Volunteers who are interested in helping the planning stages and joining the committee for Cars for the Cure need to contact Robert D. Hodgson at (407)865-3717 or Eric Gray at (407)425-5864 for more information.
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Cars for the Cure is a car show for the cure of lung diseases. What makes this show so breath taking, no pun intended? It’s the sheer amount of exotic cars that pack the Lake Mary area shopping center for that cause. A total of 167 cars rolled into this cross shaped plaza including cars from Aston Martin, Porsche, Audi, Lamborghini, Ferrari, Maserati, and Bugatti. Back to back and side to side these beastly four wheeled creatures stood, sporting v12 engines, turbochargers, and wide rubber tires. Some individual owners brought out their collection of cars, like Nelson Cambata who owns two Bugatti Veyrons. It was also nice to see institutions like the Central Florida Hospital showing the collection of Dr. Ben Kazim on their behalf. All of the collectors made sizeable contributions for the cause.
The American Lung Association started this great car show six years ago with the help of Rob Hodgson, who is now President of the Central Florida Chapter of the American Lung Association. A close co-worker at Granny Nannies passed away from lung cancer so he started volunteering for the American Lung Association and soon started this 100% charity show as an alternative fund raiser. For the past six years almost all of the costs for the show have been donated including printing, advertising, and volunteers to run the show. Because of the huge amounts of donated work all money donations go towards research, education, and advocacy of lung health and lung disease. For example, these funds enable the Central Florida Chapter to go to elementary schools and educate the kids about proper lung health. If you would like to know more about the American Lung Association go to http://www.lungusa.org.
The show was a little windy this year but the cars still shined in the bright Florida sun and the kids still ran around pointing at the beautiful cars they saw gleaming in front of them. Walking around the extravagant paint jobs and chrome engines you could hear the sound of the singers and DJs and you could see the donation booths that gave out wine and beer to donators. Around 73 thousand dollars was raised, most of which comes from local dealerships like Fields Auto Group, Collier Jaguar, Lotus Orlando, and Courtesy Honda. The main contributor this year, as in the previous four years, was Classic Audi of Orlando. Last year the show took quite a hit with the fall of the market. Many dealerships could not afford to make their usual donation and they only collected 39 thousand dollars compared to 60 thousand in 2008. Some dealerships like Saturn and Pontiac won’t ever be able to make a donation again.
But this year the show was a great success and turned over a whopping 15 thousand guests, although not their highest of 20 thousand guests in 2009. The show is free and open to the public. Thanks to people like Eric Gray, Area Executive Director of the Central Florida chapter for the American Lung Association, and the volunteers that gave their time and energy to make this show happen it came without off without a flaw, but all is not done just yet. With a main committee of five to six people and growth of the show they have needed to expand. You don’t need to know about cars to volunteer, you just need the drive to help save some lives. When speaking with Eric Gray he said, “You can quote me. I run the show and I don’t know the first thing about cars”. Volunteers who are interested in helping the planning stages and joining the committee for Cars for the Cure need to contact Robert D. Hodgson at (407)865-3717 or Eric Gray at (407)425-5864 for more information.
1 Comment
Awesome. Nice to see people coming together for a Good cause and all the money Donated toward the cause.