Jan 2021 started off slow for the club, we were still under COVID restrictions, so we turned to zoom for our meetings and activities. David Jothen with the Insurance Garage presented some insurance tips for us.
March 2021 we would have guest speakers on zoom. Tim Metko presented Driving with the Club, this presentation was a great tool for new members & previous members on what to expect and how to prepare for the club drives.
Sally Macklin presented Staying Healthy during covid with some tips on healthy eating and ongoing classes that she offers.
We scored an invite to view a private car collection in Boring, Oregon. We were guest of Jerry Logan’s. We invited the GTO club to come along, and we enjoyed a few hours of beautiful cars and the start of getting back to normal.
April 2021 we would have our first club drive of the season. Eight members would drive to Mt Angel visit the covered bridge for a photo shoot and have lunch in the park then tour the sausage house & antique store.
May 2021 our club drive would take us to Madras to have lunch at Sonic Drive In then tour the air museum.
We would answer a call from the local Cystic Fibrosis chapter to join them on the Portland Raceway for their annual car parade. Our club joined the Left Coast Mustang Club at the raceway. Our club held a fundraiser, and our members did not disappoint. We raised $180 for the event, but more importantly we provided eye candy for the
families as they drove the track.
We organized a car parade thru five assisted living facilities. We had approx. fifty cars come out to help bring some smiles to faces.
June 2021 we were invited to Vintage Rose Linn assisted living for a small car show. Rose Linn provided lunch for us while residents enjoyed looking at our cars.
Our club drive would take us to Trout Lake for a picnic.
July 2021 we were invited to a classic car picnic in Vancouver, members enjoyed looking at the cars and visiting with everyone.
We took a club drive to Garibaldi where we boarded the Coastal train to Rockport had lunch.
August 2021 we would gather to attend the Journey Up car show formally known as Operation Backpack. This show is a lot of fun and helps all students in the community with backpacks and school supplies. As a club we were able to donate fifty-four backpacks with school supplies. We challenged Pacific Rides & Gresham Ford to donate, and challenge was accepted.
We hosted the first car show held at Jerry’s Garage, Cruise the Country hosting about sixty cars.
We sponsored six trophies for Ft Kennedy car show and showed support by attending the event.
Sept 2021 our annual Cruise to My Father’s House hosted approx. sixty cars. We were able to donate $1106 to My Father’s House.
October 2021, we took our annual Apple Run on the Fruit loop tour. We stopped in Park dale for a picnic and social time.
Our second annual Trick or Trunk was held with the partnership of Gresham Ford. Members greeted families as they drove thru to collect candy. Fred & Sandy Gaittens took first place in the best car decorated and Johni Gordon took best costume.
November 2021, we hosted our second annual Drive Thru Fill a Bag event. Our Face book fundraiser & in per-
son donations raised over $475 to buy nine thousand pounds of food. We also collected 459 pounds of food, ten pounds of pet food and thirty-seven pounds of hygiene products the day of our 2-hour event.
We met for our thankful get together potluck in November
December 2021, we helped our partners at Gresham Ford with a lighted car parade, members got into the spirit with lights and decorations on their cars.
We had our first Teen Drive to My Father’s House; our club split the cost of a laptop with Gresham Ford that was on MFH wish list for their board room. Between ten members and the club’s $200 contribution with the laptop, we collectively donated approx $800 in gift cards, gifts and office supplies.
We welcomed eight new members to our club and are looking forward to seeing everyone in 2022!!! Thank you
We have had an awkward year to say at the least, however, we have all come out of the year fine. We are blessed that all our members remain in good health and during a pandemic we were able to bring some smiles to faces with our cars. I wanted to take a look back at 2020’s events and show you what we have accomplished as a club.
Jan 2020 we had our annual kick-off meeting. A time where we gather for a lunch at McCree’s on Gresham to eat, visit, and play a dice game for gifts. We also took in the Mustang exhibit at World of Speed, what we didn’t know is that would be the last time we would visit this museum. It has since closed.
In Feb of 2020, We enjoyed our Valentine party and newlywed game with dinner from the Olive Garden. Three couples allowed us to ask them questions about their marriage, we learned that the wives really have no clue what’s under their husband’s hoods and we learned the husbands don’t remember when they met their spouses, seems to be some data discrepancies.
We would also celebrate the club’s 23 birthday with pizza and cake at our club meeting. What we didn’t realize that night was we would not be meeting for dinner or social time as a club again for months to come.
In March of 2020, we would have our last club meeting before things came to a stop with the stay-at-home orders.
In April of 2020, we would still be at a standstill trying to figure out how to maneuver thru these times
In May of 2020, we were getting our covid legs underneath us, we answered a call to do a drive-by for one of our member’s sons’ 9th birthday. This event seemed to be a break thru in the car community, we asked for help from our friends in the community and they responded. We had 40+ cars !!!!. We also did our first car parade for a birthday girl at a local assisted living facility in Gresham.
This would lead to a teacher in the Gresham district looking for help to do a drive-by for her students, our club members joined teachers and parents to make this a day the kids would remember.
In June 2020 we had our first club drive of the year, it would be a short 104 mile drive thru the countryside before stopping for lunch.
Cars & Crust also began again at Abby’s Pizza, offering our car community a place to socialize with others in the car community.
In July of 2020, we were off and running with covid precautions in place. Our members once again answered the call to help our community, we organized a car parade thru four assisted living facilities. This parade would bring out 51 cars from our community.
We would answer a call to escort a fallen soldier home from the PDX airport to McMinnville. This was an honor to be a part of and to see our country come together as one on the same mission. The escort would shut down I-205 S as 100 motorcycles and 15 Mustangs would follow behind the fallen soldier.
We would enjoy a club drive into Washington up and around Cougar and down into Carson joined by the Vancouver Mustang club
We had our first-ever drive-in movie at Carl & Dee Clinton’s home, allowing members an opportunity to get together in their classic cars and enjoy an outing while social distancing.
We hosted a covid cruise drop-in by offering a place for cars to gather and safely socialize for 2 hours offering an alternative to folks missing the car shows.
We would do our first sweet 16 birthday drive by for a girl turning sweet 16 with a car parade past her home & doing some photo ops with our cars for her.
In August of 2020, we would do a club drive to Silver Falls via the backroads to Brighten Bush and on thru Detroit Lakes, little did we know this would be one of those trips we would look back on and realize that this beautiful drive with magnificent trees and scenery, we would not be seeing again for years to come. Fire destroyed this area in the weeks to come.
We would answer a call for a boy turning 4 yrs old who loves Mustangs & Chargers in Gresham.
We took a club drive to the Painted Hills meeting up with a Mustang club from the Bend area. We toured the backroads of Prineville, Shaniko, Antelope and would have a beautiful day for the drive.
We held our first public drive-in movie where we invited the car community to join us. This was a welcomed event allowing us to relive a drive-in with cool cars around us. We would welcome 39 cars to the event.
We would end the month by answering a call for some classic cars to be showcased at the Expo center for a drive-by Cystic Fibrosis car parade, we would take that one more step further by raising $1500 for their car parade. Our members donated $500 and our club matched the members’ donations dollar for dollar, Gresham Ford would then turn around and match our donations dollar for dollar donating $500 and that was an amazing end of August for us.
In Sept of 2020, we were called to help a car enthusiast in Vancouver, Wa that had passed away by lining the road inside the cemetery as he was taken to his final resting place. We could all relate to this gesture, this was a true honor for us.
We took in our annual car drive along the Fruit Loop Tour having lunch in the park in Parkdale and buying some fruits along the way.
We helped our partners at Journey Up formally known as Operation Backpack, putting backpacks, school supplies, and food into the hands of local students in need. Our club escorted the school bus from Office Depot to Office Depot as the items were picked up from the community donations. Our club and members donated a total of 52 backpacks filled with school supplies and food for the cause. We increased 2020 donations by adding 20 more backpacks over the previous year.
Members answered a call to help Ft Kennedy, a local non-profit that provides clothing, housing, and services for veterans. Members furnished three apartments with bathrooms and kitchen items.
In Oct of 2020, we would provide a car parade and mini car showing for an assisted living facility in Lake Oswego, this allowed their residents an opportunity to see the cars and visit from a distance.
On Halloween day we would put on a Trunk or Treat event at Gresham Ford handing out candy to cars as they drove thru with their kids dressed up. This was a huge success for the members, I am not sure who benefited more us or the kids, this was truly a highlight of October we plan to continue each year. We had over 300 cars drive-thru with their kids in costume to pick up treats. We could not have done this without our partners at Gresham Ford.
In Nov of 2020, we would get our “In the Garage Workshop” back on track by working on members’ cars. It would be an honor to work on Linda’s car, which she has owned since 1965. 1965 Mustang V-8 with a 289. We were able to relive with her the day she bought the car in AZ in 1965.
We would help by participating in an event our partners at Gresham Ford hosted for Snow Cap a drive-thru food drop where club members met and donated approx 45 lbs of canned foods.
December 2020: We are now coming into December and I don’t know about you, but I think we have done a lot with 2020, we have helped so many people in our community, we have brought smiles to faces, given folks some glimmers of hope, honored those who have passed and provided some fun for folks in a dark time. I am honored to be part of this club and I hope you are too, Mt Hood Mustangs & Fords is an active club in this community, striving to make this wonderful club better each month, helping where we can, and living to drive as much as we can. We hosted our first drive-thru food drive for Fill A Bag benefiting Snow Cap, we had a great turnout of support from our car community and the public. We raised enough money to purchase 2.5 tons of food and took in 740 pounds of non-perishable items.
Again thank you, everyone, for your support in all the events we did this year and for being an important part of this club, and for caring about our community.
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Previous years
With our cruise-in at Mt Hood Community College, we are pleased to support a charity right in the backyard of the community, My Father’s House.
The mission of My Father’s House is to equip homeless families with the life skills necessary to become contributing members of their community. They help to provide housing in their complex along with classes. Their success rate is very high….like 80%!
We are happy to support this worthy charity. You can read more about them HERE.
In 2017 and 2018 we are also supporting Oregon Impact. They provide crash re-enactments at local high schools to discourage impaired driving. They conduct victim panels and car seat clinics among other goals. You can read more about them HERE.
Our club has had several successes in 2019 here are a few of our achievements. We donated more than $5,000 to seven local organizations and helped three organizations put on their car shows.
My Father’s House, we raised $898.55 to help families get into permanent housing
Oregon Impact, we raised $1280.00 to help educate drivers on distracted driving
Family Worship Center, we raised $241.00 to send inner-city kids to winter camp
Ford Asset Program, we raised $1280.00 to help support future mechanics at Mt Hood Community College
Operation Backpack we donated 43 backpacks filled with school supplies for local students in the Gresham school district.
Ft Kennedy, we raised $700 at a fundraiser, donated 500 candy bars for veteran Christmas stockings, sponsored seven trophies and helped with the presentation at their car show
Snow Cap we donated $120 to fill a bag
Gresham Sr Center, we helped park cars at their event and donated dash plaques at their car show
Emilio Inc. we helped park cars and donated dash plaques at their car show
