With an excited group of 100 enthusiastic, fired-up students from several schools in Philadelphia, and in the company of Lloyd Ayers, Fire Commissioner, City of Philadelphia and Tom Foley, CEO of the Red Cross Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter, we wrapped up our series of "Race to Prepare: events with Red Cross, FedEx and our NASCAR team on Thursday, September 24th.
On November 30th, 2007 I had the happy privilege to be at Turner Field in Atlanta participating in the NBC 11Alive 25th annual Holiday Can-a-Thon. At that event, FedEx presented The Salvation Army of Metro Atlanta with a new Disaster Response Unit (DRU). The DRU is a canteen truck that may be used to feed about 2,500 people a day and it was one of the first to be deployed in response to the recent severe flooding in Atlanta.
We recently sponsored a disaster preparedness event with Red Cross, NASCAR and a large group of middle school students. When I was in middle school, my family moved to the Virgin Islands. Back then I was somewhat familiar with disaster preparedness - as we took hurricane season very seriously - but I was not familiar with NASCAR. While NASCAR drivers race at speeds exceeding 100 miles per hour and drive on high tech speedways, the top speed limit in the islands was 40 miles per hour and lines were painted on roads by a guy in a motorcycle sidecar with a bucket of paint and a brush!
Though my aunt danced with the Washington Ballet and while I am a huge fan of the television show "So You Think You Can Dance" I myself have two left feet (can't dance!). That said, I still marvel at the ingenuity of the team of students from Norway that created an innovative pointe shoe for ballet dancers uniquely designed to keep dancers' feet warm and help prevent injuries.
Major Steve Morris is Area Commander for the Salvation Army-National Capital Area Command in D.C. On May 28, FedEx donated a brand new Disaster Response Unit (DRU) canteen truck to the Command. At the DRU dedication event, Major Morris took the ignition key to the vehicle, held it up high in view of the crowd, and said "This is not just a key - it represents life."
Joe Gibbs, former coach of the Washington Redskins, added excitement to the special occasion, as did professional NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin, also on hand for the event.
