Wash for Life

Wash for Life 2008

2008-07-02T23:36:00.002-04:00

Hello all!

Well, as you can tell, we've been neglecting this blog. But that doesn't mean we've forgotten about the Wash for Life. In fact, we are working to make this the biggest Wash for Life yet! So visit the website and sign up for WFL 08. And who knows, we might even update the blog once in a while too..

Stay tuned!

WFL 07 tomorrow

2007-09-14T18:22:00.000-04:00

Here we go - the second annual Wash for Life happens tomorrow. I hope everyone who is participating is as excited about it as we are. You'll be in our prayers, and we'll be waiting to hear all about it. Have fun and God bless!

2ND ANNUAL WASH FOR LIFE

2007-08-07T16:31:00.000-04:00

The sign ups are coming in, and if you are planning a car wash let us know. So what is new, well the preparations for September 15th are underway. The Wash for Life packets will be going out soon, and if you have heard from us in awhile well things have just been crazy! But we will have the info about where to find your local car wash up on the website soon enough. Let us know if we can help with your preparations!

P.S. Don't forget to ask your PRC if they will be at your car wash!

Life Chain - October 1

2006-09-30T17:17:00.000-04:00

Here's another chance to be involved in a national pro-life event. The Life Chain will take place on Sunday, October 1. Use the link or contact your church to find out where to go. Stand up and show your support for the women and children threatened by abortion.

Stories and pics

2006-09-29T11:40:00.000-04:00

The pictures and stories that we have received from Wash for Life '06 are up on the website! It has been an exciting time for us, hearing about all the good things that happened on September 16. We hope you enjoy them too.

If you did a car wash and still have something you want to share, by all means send it to us - we'd love to expand the '06 'yearbook.'

WFL '06!

2006-09-17T19:55:00.000-04:00

We did it! Thank you and congratulations to all our groups. Many have already sent us their results, and the rest will do so shortly. Keep an an eye on our website: we will be posting lots of stories and pictures in the next couple weeks. We've heard many great things, and are looking forward to sharing them. Praise God!

9/16

2006-09-16T01:21:00.000-04:00

Here it is! The big day has arrived. Good luck to all our groups. Have fun, wash lots of cars, and don't forget to send us your results. The Wash for Life team has all of you in our prayers!

The last push

2006-09-14T11:24:00.000-04:00

We're two days away! Katherine Lopez's article came out on National Review Online and has appeared in several newspapers. We just came out on Focus on the Family's CitizenLink.com again. We've also been interviewed and recorded for several Christian radio programs. More and more people are hearing about the Wash for Life - this Saturday should be exciting!

The car wash locations are being updated, and last minute sign ups are still coming in. Think we can make it to 200?

Happy Birthday Briena!

2006-09-12T13:20:00.000-04:00

Happy Birthday Briena, the big 22!

10 days to go

2006-09-06T10:24:00.000-04:00

The last couple days have been big for us, with great articles on LifeNews, Townhall, and National Review Online.

Here's the update on what states we still need. Colorado and Montana are now on board, but unfortunately our one car wash in New Mexico had to cancel, so we still need these 14 states:

1) Maine
2) New Hampshire
3) Rhode Island
4) Connecticut
5) Delaware
6) Mississippi
7) North Dakota
8) South Dakota
9) New Mexico
10) Utah
11) Idaho
12) Nevada
13) Alaska
14) Hawaii

Know anyone in any of these who would be able to run a car wash? It's not a difficult event to organize, but time is running out!

Happy Birthday to Henry

2006-08-31T15:46:00.000-04:00

Henry turns 24 today. Happy birthday! We are glad to have him working with us.

100 groups!

2006-08-24T17:25:00.000-04:00

We are happy to report that we have passed the 100 mark for car wash sign ups! Congrats to all the brave souls who can say that they were the first participants in the first ever Wash for Life.

Here are the top five states:

North Carolina: 10
Michigan: 10
Louisiana: 8
Florida: 8
California: 7

We'll see who is on top by Sept. 16! As a SoCali native, I would like to see us pick it up a bit.

On the other side of the spectrum, here are the states with Absolutely No Participation:

Alaska - Colorado - Connecticut - Delaware - Hawaii - Idaho - Maine - Mississippi - Montana - North Dakota - New Hampshire - Nevada - Rhode Island - South Dakota - Utah

We will be working on these next!

Make sure to keep checking the map. The numbers are growing every day.

Seventeen?

2006-08-17T14:39:00.000-04:00

Latest and greatest sign that the word about the devastating effects of abortion is finally making it out in mainstream media. The latest issue of Seventeen magazine published an article by a girl who was pressured into an abortion by her mother. Although we don't support Seventeen magazine, the article is poignant: beginning with a beautiful relationship gone awry through immoral behaviour, and ending with her talking about how she writes to her unborn daughter everyday. If that wasn't amazing enough, the mother also was published saying, how sorry she was that she encouraged her daughter to have an abortion, and how she didn't realize the pain and the problems which are consequences of her fear for her daughter. The truth is coming out, the fact that this article was published at this time, shows that a change is in the air. Young people are recognizing the effects of the culture of death, and are more interested in embracing a culture of life. This generation is pro-life.

WFL is no longer available in cheez whiz..

2006-08-10T15:45:00.000-04:00

Well everything is going well ( except that the Red Sox have lost four days in a row). We are hoping that people will see the sign-on page and sign up.

Check this site out www.carwashguys.com They have a lot of neat ideas, and maybe their information could answer some of your car washing questions. Another idea is to check with your pregnancy care center maybe you could have the wash in their parking lot. A cool idea that people have mentioned to us, is to sell tickets to the car washes before the car wash.

What else, well Henry is back!!! Yes he is great, he brings us donuts, we like him a lot. Jon wanted you all to know that he is still here, and still beautiful (See picture). Napolean the fish is very alive and well.

Check out our group on Facebook( or as Hillary calls it "Myface") The facebook group is called the Wash for Life!

Another thing, if you want to sign up but don't have time. Give us a ring and we can do it over the phone! The number is 703 241 7171. So far the east is winning with the sign ups, so you Pacific coasters, sign up to wash them cars and save those babies.

Only one member of the team eats canned cheese, guess who?

PS Ingrid has no life, and gets to poke fun on the blog. She probably will never be allowed to post again.

Optimism

2006-08-07T19:13:00.000-04:00

It is now 5 1/2 weeks until the Wash for Life. So far we have forty-four groups signed up, many fewer than our goal of two thousand. But we were thinking about it the other day, and realized: With all the articles, radio spots, blog posts, conferences, efforts contacting individual dioceses and churches, and word of mouth, it is likely that at least a million people have heard about the Wash for Life. If only 2% of those who heard about it took it seriously and thought it was a good idea, that’s twenty thousand people. And if only 1 out of 10 of these act on it and sign-up to hold a car wash, that’s our two thousand – only 0.2% of those who heard about it. So, we are still optimistic – a lot could happen in the next couple weeks; and of course, it’s in God’s hands. Plus, even with only the forty-four car washes we have now, we still have a worthwhile story.

New Blog True Choices for Women!

2006-08-01T10:34:00.000-04:00

Here's a new blog you all should check out and link to, it is called True Choices for Women. The blog features a new pregnancy care center each week. We want everybody to know about these incredible centers. If you know of a great center, and want them to be profiled by True Choices, send us an email at Truechoices@washforlife.org. Also, if you see your local center profiled, consider doing a car wash for them or nagging your buddies to do one!

The map is up!!

2006-07-18T18:21:00.000-04:00

The long-awaited map is finally up our website. Have a look, if you haven't seen it already. This will be a great way to watch the project grow as more and more people sign up. Enjoy!

Spreading the Word

2006-07-17T10:54:00.000-04:00

Wash for Life got two big breaks today. First, an article about us appears in this week's National Catholic Register, which is one of the most widespread Catholic newspapers. Then, we got a spot on the Family News radio program, a project of Focus on the Family that broadcasts from around 500 stations across the country. We've been working with the authors and have been looking forward to this for a long time. Keep an eye open for the Register article, and listen to the radio broadcast online.

NACHE pic

2006-07-11T12:38:00.000-04:00

Here's our booth!

Notice the dance pad next door at the Baltimore Archdiocese Youth Ministry's booth.. That attracted a lot of kids, which meant that we got to talk to their parents! Hillary liked it too..

NACHE Conference

2006-07-10T15:01:00.000-04:00

This last weekend we had a booth set up at the Catholic Family Expo in Baltimore. The conference was presented by the National Association of Catholic Home Educators (NACHE), so, as you can imagine, there were a lot of families with a lot of kids running around. When they discovered that the Wash for Life table had both chocolate and 500 bouncy-balls to give away, we became pretty popular!

We were able to tell lots of people about the project. Many took flyers and promised to bring them back to their parish youth leaders. Hopefully these groups will decide to hold car washes.

We were surprised and encouraged to learn that a lot of people had already heard about us! On the first day, one man saw our sign and said, "Oh yeah, the Wash for Life. My parish is doing one of those." Other people mentioned having received emails or mailings about it - not from us, but from someone else. It hasn't even been two months yet since we were really able to start working on this.. It's in the Holy Spirit's hands and He's doing a good job!

All in all, it was a good conference for us. Most of the vendors would have liked there to have been more traffic in the exhibition hall, but we did alright. Our 'neighbors' - Eric from University of Dallas, Bob the K'nex guy, the folks from the Archdiocese of Baltimore, and Joe of Life Values Financial - were fun to talk to. And the daily drives of 1 1/2 hour each way weren't bad, despite John's tendency to sail blissfully past the correct exits..

We'll be posting some pictures shortly, so check back soon..

Bigger than money

2006-07-03T17:18:00.000-04:00

Many of you have heard by now that Warren Buffet, the second-richest man in the world, is leaving more than $35 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Gates Foundation has given several million dollars to pro-abortion groups, including Planned Parenthood. Pro-life leaders are worried that this new source of funds will mean more money going to population control projects.

Groups that promote abortion are large and well funded. Many women don't know that there are other, better options available.

That is why what we're doing is so important. Pregnancy care centers need to be funded, and they need to be promoted. The Wash for Life does both, through the efforts of pro-life youth.

If the young people of America become active in the pro-life movement, it won't matter that we have less money than abortion supporters.

Thousands of youth, united across the nation, can have a greater voice than billions of dollars.

News articles

2006-06-30T13:01:00.000-04:00

Here's something exciting: Both National Right to Life News and the National Catholic Register have a great article in the works about the Wash for Life. These publications are well known and have very wide circulations - this is a big break for us. Watch for them!

Back from Nashville

2006-06-26T17:05:00.000-04:00

Thanks be to God, our time at the NRL Convention was a great success!

It is hard to give a summary, but in general I will say that those who we spoke to about the Wash for Life saw it as a project that will breath new life into the youth pro-life movement. We heard it said over and over, that the pro-life youth of America need to be given some way to be active, and that they need to be organized and unified. Many people we met are working toward these goals, and they were excited to see that the Wash for Life is a dynamic, practical way of accomplishing both.

There are several moments we could give as highlights of the weekend. For one thing, Jonathan and Ingrid were interviewed by Fr. Frank Pavone, for the Priests for Life TV program! We also got a picture with both him and former-supermodel-turned-pro-life-activist Jennifer O'Neill.

We met many people who are zealously working to protect human life in all the ways it is threatened; it is good to know that we have people like that on our side.

One story I should mention: the four of us can now say that we have eaten pizza with a movie star at 1:30am in a hotel lobby. Eduardo Verastegui is a Mexican actor and a very nice guy, who cringed every time he was introduced as the 'Brad Pitt of Mexico.' Needless to say, Ingrid and Hillary were very excited.

Eduardo was there with his producer, Leo Severino, who is way up there on the list of coolest people I have ever met. They were at the convention for a special pre-release screening of the movie Bella. It is a powerful, artistic movie with a good message. Eduardo, Leo, and the director each had a conversion experience some years ago, and gave up what promised to be very successful careers in the secular world in order to start a film company that could make a difference. The name of the company is Metanoia Films; metanoia is a Greek word that means a change of heart and mind. This movie is the first of many that will do just that.

So now, after yesterday's 10 hour drive that became a 13 hour drive thanks to the rain, we are back at the office taking advantage of what we learned at the convention. Lots of new people to talk to, letters to write, leads to follow... One good thing about this weekend is that we spoke with many people who will now go back to their own organizations and spread the word through their own networks. Over the weekend (to our delight) we received three that are the first from people we don't know. Soon, we hope, the sign-ups will start pouring in!

NRL Convention

2006-06-16T12:12:00.000-04:00

The Wash for Life team will be at the June 22-24 National Right to Life Convention in Nashville, TN.

We won't have a booth, as the deadline was way back in March when we had just come up with the idea.. But our flyer will be included in the package that everyone gets, and we'll be walking around with our Wash for Life t-shirts, telling people about the project.

So, look for us if you're there, we'll be happy to talk!

WFL Down Under

2006-06-16T12:07:00.000-04:00

How about this: The other day we got an email from someone in Australia, asking if she could participate in the Wash for Life! Hey, the more the merrier! International Wash for Life, anyone?

Time to sign up!!

2006-06-16T11:14:00.000-04:00

We're officially ready to have you sign up to hold a car wash!

Work on the Wash for Life progresses steadily. We've had several meetings with various pro-life leaders here in DC, and each contact leads to five more. They will be a big help in getting the word out about the project.

Keep checking our website - we've been doing a lot of work on it.

Three months until the Wash for Life!! This is the time to sign on.

CWA Article

2006-06-08T10:22:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to share this: Cara Cook of Concerned Women for America (CWA) wrote a wonderful article about us. It's encouraging to see people getting excited about our project!

Check it out: http://www.cwfa.org/articles/10872/CWA/life/index.htm

It's only been one week??

2006-05-29T11:00:00.000-04:00

One week down, and the Wash for Life is off to a good start. The first couple of days involved a lot of furniture rearranging as the family room transformed into an HQ. We were able to pick up two chairs, a whiteboard, and a cork board for under $25 - not bad at all! A friend also donated another computer; so all in all, the office is in good shape.

Mostly we've been following up on leads, contacting people and organizations that we hope will be able to help us. The response so far has been very positive. The Holy Spirit seems to be moving people to get almost excited about this project as we are! We're looking forward to the not-distant time when we can start actually signing people up to hold car washes.

The other night Jonathan gave us a night time tour of the Memorials in DC. Living in the Capital is a great experience, and we want to make the most of it. This summer will be a lot of work, but we're also looking forward to it being a lot of fun! A big part of that is thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Tonkowich, who have been wonderful and generous in hosting us, and in their continual enthusiasm and support.

The rest of this week will be slower, as Jonathan leaves for a wedding in California, and the rest of us have a chance to take care of personal business. Ingrid arrived last night (hooray!), and Hillary and Henry will come in next week.

Happy Memorial Day!

The Team Arrives in DC

2006-05-22T12:17:00.000-04:00

A week and a bit ago, we were up on a stage at Thomas Aquinas College, receiving our diplomas. The graduation ceremony is called a Commencement, or 'beginning,' and it certainly felt that way for the Wash For Life team! Up until then we had to give pride of place to our studies, but now it's time to focus on this project.

2958 miles of driving later, Jonathan, John, Briena, and her brother Aaron arrived at Jonathan's house in Washington D.C. Ingrid, Hillary, and Henry will fly in during the next couple weeks.

For those of us who drove, our trip was delayed by an unexpected adventure. In Chattanooga, Tennesee, we visited the National Shrine for the Unborn, then stopped in at the nearby pregnancy counseling center to introduce ourselves. The ladies there told us that the shrine was expecting the arrival of Norma McCorvey, the now pro-life Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade. We had been anxious to get back on the road, but not any more! We waited, and were able to meet Miss Norma and tell her about the project. Later that evening we were invited to attend a fundraiser banquet for the local pro-life group. Everyone we met was very excited to hear about our project, and many were interested in helping. Many thanks especially to the ladies at the AAA Woman's Services Clinic for their enthusiasm!

Jonathan, Briena, and John with Miss Norma McCorvey

All in all, it was an amazing example of the way that the Holy Spirit is in charge of the Wash For Life. We had one plan, but he gave us something else.. And that's the way it will keep happening.
For now, we are working on setting up the office, finishing the website, and making initial contact with some of the big networks. We want to be fully prepared for the start of the big recruiting push, when the rest of the team arrives.

And despite all doleful predictions, Napolean the Betta fish survived the drive, and has agreed to officially join the Wash for Life Team!!

First class seat

Team Fish arrives home

Welcome

2006-05-11T01:02:00.000-04:00

Hi, welcome to our blog! Please feel free to post questions or comments. We will try to keep all you who are interested updated in this project. Right now we are in the setting up phase, as you can see from the website. We will have the office set up in VA by the end of May, and hopefully start networking these car-washes. So thanks for checking us out and please feel free to contact us at any time.

Wash for Life

2006-05-03T22:22:00.000-04:00

Wow! And it begins...