The Variety Club is an Internationally recognized charity organization that helps and supports less fortunate children through the actions of the local clubs. To date they have raised over $100 million in BC for children with special needs.
Some of you may be familiar with the Variety Club, its international structure and some of the history and folklore behind them. If not, I suggest you visit a few web sites including one in Australia that has a very interesting write up about them. The URL is http://www.ozemail.com.au/~bworth/bashvc.htm Another site that gives you a good overview of Variety Clubs is at: http://www.angelfire.com/vt/varietyinter/
Our local BC Variety Club also has a great background page: http://www.variety.bc.ca/aboutus/history.asp

One of the well know things that you may recognize that Variety Clubs do is to provide 'Sunshine Coaches' for transportation needs.

Sunshine Coaches started in 1962, when the then 'Barker' of the Variety Club of Great Britain, Leslie A. Macdonnell, C.B.E., visited Queen Mary's Hospital in Surrey. He saw an eight year old girl who, because of an incurable illness was confined to her bed and had never been outside hospital. After this visit, Mr Macdonnell spent many hours thinking how Variety could help to lighten the life of this child and the many others like her.
Thus was born the idea for what has become the Sunshine Coach program.
It began to grow as the vehicles demonstrated their flexibility in servicing all the transportation needs of the handicapped and underprivileged children cared for by the recipient institutions, schools, youth clubs, treatment centers and societies.

There are now more than seven thousand Sunshine Coaches on the roads in over 70 countries in the world.

Our club feels that one of the appropriate things we do in our community is to support and give a bit to those less fortunate. When it came time to look for a charity or something worthwhile to support, the Variety Club became an easy choice for all the right reasons. High recognition, fully non profit, Kids as the main focus, and Sunshine Coaches as our transportation tie in.

So it is that a couple of years ago as the club got started we choose the Variety Club. Our initial efforts were to provide a bank of volunteers to help answer phones during the local Variety Club of BC Show of Hearts.

Last year, as the club had more members, we expanded our support, by not only providing willing phone helpers, but we also started participating in a pledge program. This allowed our club and its members to contribute over $2000 to the Variety Club.
Based on last years success, we are hoping to expand our support this year. One of our goals is to actually raise enough money to have the BMW CC of BC name placed on a 'Sunshine Coach' as one of the contributing supporters. This would be great recognition for the club while doing something good in our community.

The program that allows us to do this is straight forward, and benefits both you and the club. You make a personal pledge and donation to the Variety Club, but identify that you are a BMW Car Club of BC member. You as an individual get the tax receipt for your donation over $20, and the BMW Car Club gets receives recognition for bringing your pledge to the Variety Club. The Variety Club makes it all very easy, and you should find a pledge form and return envelope with this newsletter.

We would strongly urge you to consider making a pledge, or if you already pledge (as we know many members already do) make sure the BMW Car Club of BC gets recognition for your contribution. All pledge amounts are confidential, and the club only finds out the total that was recognized as coming from club members.

Please join us in supporting the Variety Club of BC Show of Hearts this February. Make a personal donation using the enclosed form and let them know it came from you as a BMW Car Club of BC member.

With a little support from all of our members we can easily exceed the $2000 amount we provided last year, hopefully by a large enough amount that we can get our club name on a Sunshine Coach as a contributing supporter.

Every Sunshine Coach supplied has the name of its sponsor painted on its bodywork together with any appropriate legend. This serves as a constant reminder of the donors generosity and thoughtfulness in fulfilling such vital transportation requirements.

In addition to making a donation, you can also still opt to help by donating some of your time and actually helping during the Show of Hearts weekend. Contact Dave Beddows, for more details, and to become a phone helper during the event.

If you plan to pledge by phone or other means, please tell them that you are with the BMW CCBC. They will have us entered in their database as BMW CCBC not BMW Car Club of BC.

Help promote your Club by showing that BMW owners are people who care and support their community.