Fan Club President/Vice President Help Families Of 9/11

After the tragic events of 9/11 we as Americans were asked to help and the entire country responded with a level of cooperation that will never be forgotten. Fan club President, Mike McDonnell wondered what he could do to help. Listening to the news a couple of days after the tragedy, he heard about the demand for American flags outweighing the supply and hit upon an idea! You see, Mike owns Gaffney's Sporting Goods which is a multi-store business in the St. Louis area and they specialize in custom screenprinted t-shirts. Mike had an idea to print up t-shirts with the American flag on the front with the words "Let Freedom Ring" and "God Bless America" surrounding the flag and give the proceeds of sales to the Red Cross and Backstoppers organizations. He asked the Fan club Vice-President/Webmaster, Steve LaRico, who also manages one of his stores what he thought of the idea. "We both thought we could sell a couple of hundred tees and that would be that" Then Mike suggested that Steve call a local radio station and ask them to announce the sales of the shirts which sold for $5.00 each with $4.00 from each shirt sale being split in half and donated to the above charities. "I decided to come in about an hour early that Friday", Steve explains "and the phone did not stop ringing the entire weekend!" People were calling in and ordering hundreds at a time and with only 2 people running the store it got a little crazy. Customers were coming in and answering phones for us, buying us lunch, and helping out any way they could. It was truly a heartwarming experience. While Steve was in the store, Mike was in the attached print shop with the crew knocking out shirts by the THOUSANDS! By the time it was all said and done, they had donated over $30,000.00 to the Red Cross and Backstoppers! "Oh, and by the way", Steve adds, "we were playing Elvis CD's most of the time".