As the birth of our Marine Corps has come and gone this update is to notify you of the foundation and our current status in the restoration. Unfortunately, the restoration process has been put on hold since late September 2016. Both the Raider Mobile and the Donor car have been placed in storage, at no cost to the foundation. To put it plainly, we simply have not raised the required funds to continue the restoration at this time. Although the RaiderMobile project still receives quite a bit of interest, that interest hasn’t materialized into donations. Our fundraising efforts have fallen significantly short of our goal and to date have raised a total amount of $8507.00 in the past nine (9) months. I have continued to fundraise on my own and have also just made a donation to the foundations savings account to bring the amount in the account to match the amount on the GoFundMe. This donation covered all of the fees withdrawn from all of the donations made in the past on our GoFundMe, so to all of my donors to date I thank you and wanted you to know that your entire donation will be going to the continued restoration in the future months. Also I wanted all of my donors to know that not a penny of the funds raised for this restoration have been used for any of the historical research, DMV fees, IRS Fees for the 501c3 status, Storage and Towing, the purchase and transportation of the donor car itself, nor the upkeep and or any fees or funds required to create and keep the foundation ongoing thus far. This has been all out of pocket and has amounted to just over $5000.00 to date. This is something I have gladly done because I believe in this project but I need help.
As stated in the history section we had hoped to do a reveal at the 2016 VMGR-352 Marine Corps Ball but I am sad to say that we were unable to meet that goal this year. We will adapt, improvise, and overcome and have now set a new date for a reveal of November 2017. Over the next year we will continue to push towards our original goal of a full restoration of the RaiderMobile but that will depend on the donations and interest from not only the community but anyone interested in supporting our combined effort. The next phase of the restoration will require us to have raised a total of $20,000 of the total goal. There is an alternate plan being drawn up if that cannot happen, that we will restore the RaiderMobile to the alternate COA as a static display and have it donated to the museum on MCAS Miramar as this would allow a much smaller budget than the full restoration. Please continue to share and support our overall efforts to return the car to its original glory as it is the underlying hope that those who read this will involve themselves in OPERATION RESTORE TANKER LINCOLN. Please click on the link below to the proposed budget for this restoration that can show you what it is your donation will go to in the future, or if you have questions about how the funds will be used towards our goal.
The RaiderMobile BUDGET
Please continue to advertise and support the project. I am also looking for Raiders and former Raiders in the San Diego local area to help more with this project. I would ask that anyone with ideas to assist in the restoration, fundraising or of the potential corporate sponsors that can assist us with our project, to contact me through the link on the homepage. I am also asking if anyone is interested in volunteering in any way, to let me know how you would be willing to give some of your time. I am continuing to document and chronicling this project to add to our “Raider Legacy” and for the chance that one of the TV shows out there that do this sort of project, that may be interested in assisting in the restoration and supporting the Marines of our illustrious past, present, and future, return the RaiderMobile to a safe and “mission capable” status.
