Posted on 10/29/2005 4:57:25 AM PDT by rhema
Urged on by roaring fans, 43 NASCAR rivals flashed around the flat oval at Virginia's Martinsville Speedway in the Subway 500. Drivers braked at the track's notorious wreck-maker turns, then screamed down the straightaways at speeds of up to 126 mph. Before packed grandstands and a national television audience, each car doubled as a speeding billboard emblazoned with logos like Home Depot, Motorcraft, Interstate Batteries, and . . . Care-Net Pregnancy Centers?
Hardly your standard manly racecar ad. But Joe Gibbs Racing Team driver Bobby Labonte indeed circled the track on Oct. 23 in the Interstate Batteries car, its entire fluorescent green hood declaring in huge letters: "CARE-NET and Interstate Batteries. Charged for Life!"
Mr. Labonte finished fourth, his best showing since May in NASCAR's top-tier Nextel Cup Series. But Interstate and Care-Net are hoping women and children will finish first as a result of their collaborative fundraising campaign.
Care-Net, a Christian group based in Sterling, Va., supports a network of 900 pregnancy centers that offer women facing unplanned pregnancies compassionate alternatives to abortion. Dallas-based Interstate Batteries, more than a half-century old, is a distinctly Christian firm whose mission statement begins, "To glorify God."
How did a tenderhearted outreach to women wind up partnering with a company that evokes images of leather-jacketed men wielding power tools? Through Interstate's corporate vice president for marketing Dennis Brown.
"Interstate, separately from Care-Net, had developed a fundraising program for schools and other organizations," said Mr. Brown, a Care-Net board member since 2004. "As I became more aware of the needs of crisis pregnancy centers, I thought this would be a way that Interstate might be able to get involved."
The "Charged for Life" campaign resembles seasonal school and charity fundraisers in which supporters canvas neighborhoods or co-workers, taking orders for magazines, wrapping paper, or gift items. But in this case, the products they sell are batteries. (Interstate sells a wide range of products, including AAA, AA, and 9-volt batteries, not just car batteries.) Care-Net CPCs participate in the year-round campaign individually, with 50 percent of the proceeds from each sale going directly to that center. A small portion of the remaining half of the sale price will benefit Option Line, a national 24-hour call center for women facing crisis pregnancies.
Interstate kicked off "Charged for Life" with both a $50,000 initial donation and the advertising space on the hood of its company-sponsored racecar at Martinsville—marketing real estate worth $250,000. A splashy debut to be sure. But beyond the glitz of NASCAR, Dennis Brown has personal reasons for pinning high hopes on the campaign: When his daughter, Jackie, was 18, she became pregnant out of wedlock.
Mr. Brown isn't sure whether Jackie seriously considered abortion. But in the end she decided to carry the child to term and place him for adoption. That was 16 years ago. Now a married mother of three, Jackie last month traveled to Nashville with Mr. Brown for Care-Net's annual conference. After they arrived, father and daughter sat together in their hotel, paging through a memory book she'd put together. Page after page chronicled birthdays, Christmases, school plays, Halloweens—the entire boyhood—of Alex, now 15, the son for whom she had chosen life.
"It was unbelievable," said Mr. Brown, who had never seen the book before that moment. "That was my grandson. It was the most profound experience I've had, to be able to see his life come together like that." Alex's was a "closed" adoption, meaning that Jackie has no contact with Alex and he doesn't know her identity. But as a gift to her, the adoptive parents had provided her with mementos of his growing up.
Mr. Brown's involvement with Care-Net has given him an opportunity to "be more of an adoption advocate," he said, noting that the group's emphasis on life gives more women the opportunity to make the same decision Jackie made. "It's not the kind of thing I wore on my sleeve before, but working with Care-Net allows me to talk about compassionate caring for women, and about adoption as a viable choice."
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http://www.ibsa.com/www_2001/content/about_us/mission.asp
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To glorify God as we supply our customers worldwide with top quality, value-priced batteries, related electrical power-source products, and distribution services. Further, our mission is to provide our partners and Interstate Batteries System of America, Inc. (IBSA) with opportunities which are profitable, rewarding and growth-oriented.
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I want to work for THEM!!
I tease my younger brother (a pastor) about NASCAR. He is a huge sports fan, but not a race fan. I will sit down with him to watch other sports, and every game I start with 'Did I miss the prayer?'.
NASCAR is booming, however, and the NFL is holding its own. Any coincidence that the most overtly Christian sporting groups are doing the best?
Joe Gibbs; A real American Patriot.
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