Motorists who need a snack and want their car washed can make a pit stop at New Carlisle’s AutoZone this Sunday, July 16, between 2-5 p.m. That is where members of Tecumseh High School’s brand-new Jr. Optimist club will be armed with soap, water, towels, and their trademark great attitudes as they gear up to wash cars for the service club’s first fundraiser of the year.
“We will be washing cars for donations, and the New Carlisle Optimist Club is helping (by) sponsoring a bake sale during the car wash,” explains the Jr. Optimist club’s Public Relations Officer, Harley Adamson. “We are a new club, and we really need to raise funds so we can buy supplies and other things to help us do our service projects and help the community.”
Tecumseh’s Jr. Optimist club was recently organized during the 2016-17 school year, but the club has already been involved in several significant community outreach and service projects.
Adamson says last winter the club members assembled Christmas care boxes for homeless youth in Dayton, and made blankets for elderly residents at New Carlisle’s Dayview Care Center. The Jr. Optimists have continued serving the community during the summer by hosting a 1950’s-themed lunch and dance at Dayview, and helping IMPACT Bethel serve lunches to children in its summer free lunch program.
Adamson explains that the Jr. Optimist club is able to hold the fundraiser because of the generosity of the local AutoZone, located at 415 N. Main St. in New Carlisle.
AutoZone is providing everything the Jr. Optimists needs for the car wash, including soap, buckets, towels, and water hoses. Store manager, Marvin Haubach, says the club’s car wash is one of the approximately 10 car wash fundraisers his store sponsors each summer, and AutoZone donates an average of $100 in supplies for each event. “The kids just need to bring themselves and a willingness to work,” says Haubach, “(We) supply everything else.” One perk the store does receive is getting its large service trucks washed at each event.
As Adamson and Haubach look forward to the Jr. Optimist club’s upcoming fundraiser, they each list various reasons why their organization is involved in the event, but echo each other when they say, “(We) really just enjoy helping and supporting our (local) community.”
