Everyday Tow Heroes In IL

Kudos to Patrick Winer of Worldwide Equipment Sales and all the towers who took part in this, coming to the rescue of needy kids! Here's the www.wsbt.com story:

ELKHART – At first glance, it looked like a full-blown emergency on Main Street in Elkhart Saturday morning, but it was actually a rescue. Tow truck operators from the Chicago area joined with their local brethren to donate toys to needy area children

“I love to see all the tow trucks coming together. It gave me the tingles. It really did,” explained Brittany Mast. Mast is an employee of Tom’s 24-Hour Towing in the Elkhart area.

Tow truck operators and their families joined with Elkhart firefighters to load the toys onto trailers destined for the Tolson Center, Salvation Army and Faith Mission.

“Happy holidays,” was the greeting that many of the relief agencies greeted the donors with as they gratefully accepted hundreds of toys.

The Tow Trucks for Tots concept is the brainchild of Patrick Winer, who owns Worldwide Equipment Sales. The company sells tow trucks. It’s based out of Chicago, but this year the drivers didn’t need a star to lead them east.

“We had some extra toys this year, and we thought ‘What can we do with them?’” Winer said. He says since Elkhart had such high unemployment, he wanted to bring the toys here. He hopes other businesses will follow his lead and make similar donations.

So why tow trucks? In this Economy, many of these drivers play a role in repos. They want people to know they are more like Santa than the Grinch.
“Yeah, usually people don’t like us. They say we steal their cars. We do have a bad image, so we’re trying to change that with this stuff,” said Tony West. He was driving a truck labeled “60 Ton Tator.” He got up at 3 a.m. on Saturday to make the trek to Elkhart with the toys.

Councilman Arvis Dawson gave the tow truck drivers a proclamation from the city on behalf of Mayor Dick Moore.

“I want all the kids to know this is want an angel looks like,” dawson said.
Charlotte Applewhite is the director of Tolson Center.

“The need has tripled. We get calls daily,” she said.

The Tolson Center will distribute the toys it received on December 23 from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on a first come, first serve basis.