Walmart, New England Region 3rd Annual Golf Tournament at Green Meadows C.C. in Hudson, NH Benefits Children's Hospital at Dartmouth
Walmart vendors had special promotional sales over the last few months to help raise money for their contribution to the golf tournament. Hanaford Associates driving instructor "Dynamite" Dave Dion of Hudson, NH & top 10 World ranked Extreme Skier Asia Magriby from Montreal, Canada set the tone for the whole event. Dion Brother's positioned their NASCAR Winston Cup style hauler in front of the club house. Hanaford Associates joined forces with Walmart & Pepsi in addition to Coke, Snapple, Polar Beverages, Kraft, Nabisco, Great State Beverages, Hershey Foods, Dr. Pepper/7 Up, Frito Lay, Kellogg's, Keebler, and Disney consumer products to raise $250,000.

Hanaford explained, " Walmart event coordinator Skip Dykstar deserves a great deal of recognition. He informed me Walmart likes to over deliver, not over commit. I took that as an invitation to bring on the big guns. Dave and Asia are the trump cards I needed to over deliver appeal and prestige. Skip positioned our racecars at the first hole, with Walmart logo's on Hanaford Associates Pepsi theme car and Dion Brothers Berlin City Ford/Continental Paving/R&R competition engines racecar. Skip wanted the cars to fire up, when the Vice President of Walmart commanded 144 golfers to start their engines and waived the flag to start the event. VP of Sam's Club started Dion's car and Walmart board of director's member started Hanaford Associates Pepsi theme car. Pepsi appeared to be title sponsors of event, but it was actually Dykstar that brought it all together. We have a follow up meeting with Walmart tomorrow to discuss next years schedule."

Sue & Meghan Richardson were special guest that are familiar with CHaD services first hand. In addition to Dave Dion and Asia Magriby, New England Motorsports Hall of Fame inductee Stub Fadden and Mike Olsen are also Hanaford Associates driving instructor's that Sue was also familiar with.

"You guys were terrific. Stub Fadden is a fantastic friend of the family & Mike Olsen worked with my Dad. I mentioned Dave Dion and my Dad went out of his chair. I also want to thank Asia from the bottom of my heart for becoming friends with Meghan. When we got in the car she was so excited she didn't stop talking. We stopped at school to pick up her friend for dance class and the first thing she said to everyone was I have a new friend and she is famous. She also told her dance teacher she was going to teach Asia to dance and Asia was going to teach her to ski."

Dion admits he was a little apprehensive at the begging, when all was said and done he felt differently. "Skip's idea of starting the event with racecars firing up had a BIG impact." Dion continues, "Dion Brothers haven't done five show car appearances in 38 years. Our fans want to see us on the track and winning races. It was great to see those kid's get excited by getting in the car and strapping in. We need to do more events to create excitement and attract new fans to our sport. It was great to do something like this locally in Continental's back yard. When we develop our plan for next year, their will be interest from New England short tracks interested in learning how to build a fan base and attract marketing partners. "