The Apple Country Auto Club isn’t just a social outlet for local car buffs with cool rides.
It’s also long been a fundraising organization that awards donation checks to several local nonprofits, agencies and organizations before the close of each year.
“Different car clubs do different things. (For example), the Blue Ridge car club, does Christmas shopping for kids. We donate to different organizations. The club was started as the Gilmer Street Rodders back in 1985 and it (later) developed into the Apple Country Auto Club. Our club joined the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) and it is the north Georgia region of the AACA,” said Ronnie Prater, Apple Country Auto Club president.
This year, the car club was able to donate almost $5,000 to a total of eight entities, confirmed its treasurer, Andrew Miller.
Check recipients include the Gilmer Community Food Pantry, the local Toys for Tots campaign, North Georgia Community Action, the Gilmer Department of Family and Children Services (DFCS) foster family Christmas program, the Kids Ferst childhood literacy program, the Gilmer Senior Center and the Children’s Miracle Network for the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta.
A donation check was also given to Gilmer High School that will provide for a scholarship to be awarded to a student in the school’s auto tech education program who goes on to tech school.
“When we visited DFACS, they said they didn’t know what they were going to do because there were three or four children they didn’t have (Christmas program money) for. Another lady walked in before we did and donated, then we donated, too,” said Prater.
Money is collected through various car club fundraising efforts over the year, the biggest of which is the club’s annual Apple Festival weekend car show.
“We collect some at the cruise-ins we have, but the bulk of it is from the Apple Festival show,” Prater confirmed.
Those cruise-ins, which are open to the public, will continue in 2020.
“They will change from Saturday to Friday night. We’ll be moving from (previous location) the Spring Plaza shopping center to the Walmart parking lot. We’ll be having the first one the second Friday night of April and (go) through September,” Prater noted.
New members welcome
Apple Country Auto Club recognized three of its longtime members, two of them club founders, at its December meeting, Prater noted.
“We gave plaques to (longtime member and past club president) Roy Smith, as well as Vic and Larry Davis, who were founders of the club back in 1985,” he said.
A few new members have joined the car club over the past year, but there’s always room for more, Prater confirmed.
“We usually meet at Papa’s Pizza the second Thursday of each month at 5 p.m. We didn’t meet in November, but we will meet in January. We try to meet 11 months out of the year,” he said.
“We welcome new members, but we do need some more young folks because us older folks are wearing out. We need younger folks to carry it on.”