HavenHouse St. Louis and the Toyota "Super Sienna"

Tweet

Earlier this month, I decided to revisit HavenHouse St. Louis. You may remember them as the nonprofit organization that was chosen as a winner of Toyota's "100 Cars for Good" program last year, where Toyota awards charity groups across the country a brand new vehicle of their choice.

HavenHouse helps families who are traveling to St. Louis for medical procedures by providing them with temporary housing, meals, and transportation to and from local area hospitals. Because of this, they often need to be able to transport guests with special needs or disabilities. When they won the 100 Cars for Good contest, they were kind enough to choose Lou Fusz as their dealership to work with, and picked a Toyota Sienna that featured a fully automated mobility seat. We wanted to make their delivery day a special one, so to make things even more exciting for them, we loaded the minivan with household supplies they were in need of, and surprised them the morning of the 100 Cars for Good celebration!

Eight months had passed since HavenHouse took delivery of their Sienna, so I traveled out to Creve Coeur to pay them a visit. It was a warm, cloudy afternoon when I pulled into the parking lot. Somehow, it wasn't sweltering hot (like St. Louis normally endures in July!)

After being let in, I sat down with Director of Community Development Lindsey Gibson to catch up and see how HavenHouse had been utilizing the Toyota Sienna. Immediately after asking, she laughed and told me that HavenHouse had already put 10,000 miles on the van since when they first drove it out of our dealership in November of 2012. The Sienna has been transporting patients all around town, from places such Barnes Hospital, Shriners, and St. Louis Children's Hospital! Lindsey then told me that Shriners Hospital will often bring patients to HavenHouse who are from out of town and don't have a vehicle. To get back to the hospital and see their loved ones, they rely on the shuttle service from HavenHouse.

I asked how the Sienna has benefited HavenHouse, and Lindsey guided me outside to the back where they park their vehicles, so I could see it myself.

HavenHouse has multiple vehicles to transport their guests around in, including another Sienna from 1998 that has nearly 200,000 miles on it. However, the staff who get to drive this new one affectionately refer to it as the "Super Sienna!"

Not surprisingly, it is the most popular vehicle by far for both passengers and drivers. Lindsey also told me that the mobility seat has been tremendous in accommodating their wheelchair bound guests.

How else has the Sienna been put to work? Lindsey mentioned that they often take it to pick up donations. Most recently, the van was filled up entirely with bottles of laundry detergent! They've also been helping to shuttle a group of kids to and from Camp Independence, a summer sports and recreation program for kids with cerebral palsy.

Before I left, I caught up with Executive Director Kathy Sindel. She told me everyone there hopes that they can eventually replace all of the older vehicles, so that their guests will always have an experience like that of the "Super Sienna!"

With 18 city MPG and 25 highway, the capability to seat up to 8 (in select models), and safety options such as blind spot monitoring, the Toyota Sienna is the perfect vehicle for the family of volunteers at HavenHouse. We're definitely looking forward to seeing it back at the dealership again for their next free ToyotaCare maintenance check up!

HavenHouse St. Louis is located at 12685 Olive Boulevard in Creve Coeur. If you'd like to learn more, you can visit them here.

Toys in a Toyota Tundra for Tots

Tweet

On the topic of holiday toy drives and getting into the Christmas spirit while at work, most people are genuinely excited. Others take on slightly more of a Grinch attitude. But that all changes when you combine a toy drive with an employee barbecue! At Lou Fusz Toyota, we pulled out all the stops. Granted, with how much some of our employees (such as John and Dan) can eat, we kind of had to. Burgers, brats, Italian sausage, you name it. Everything was made in the giant grill below thanks to our grill master pal Terry Weir from our Ford store! To top it off, our lovely manager Karen picked up potato salad, slaw, chips, and at least three different cakes. It was a feast that any tailgating party would have been proud of. The leftovers didn't even make it to the next day! Believe me, I checked the break room fridge.

To fund the BBQ, our staff contributed donations for the event, and when all was said and done, we collected over three hundred dollars that we knew we wanted to put towards a great cause- specifically, Toys For Tots. Our GM Phil Fusz matched the amount we raised and then some. With money in hand, we set out on several shopping sprees to pick up toys, giving ourselves a little bit of extra time as a buffer so we could play around. Browse any toy aisle and try not to, I dare you!

After our shopping trip, we loaded up a Toyota Tundra in our showroom that already had some donated toys in it. Here was the finished result-

Nice haul, right? We then waited until our official pick up day, and helped carry all the toys into a large moving truck that was gathering up donations from all of the Fusz stores.

We had a great time collecting all the toys, and hope they go out to some deserving families in St. Louis and everywhere else! Happy holidays! 

100 Blog Posts for Good

Tweet

There's been a lot of chatter here on the Toyota Talk blog. A hundred blog posts worth of content, to be precise! While I could reflect on all the writing I've done over the past year and do like a lot of different forms of media tend to do (condense everything into a "best of" segment, minus the laugh track) I think I'd prefer to talk about an initiative that we at the dealership have been proud to take part in for the second year in a row.

So what's the scoop? It was a tweet that started it all, actually. This past summer, I noticed a local charity, Haven House St. Louis, had mentioned a contest they were involved in with Toyota called 100 Cars for Good. I immediately recognized it because we helped out the fine folks at Mission St. Louis, who were selected as a winner last year. After seeing HavenHouse tweet about how they needed a vehicle to transport patients, I knew we had to get involved and help them win!

Patrick handing the "key" to Kathy Sindel from HavenHouse.

The 100 Cars for Good initiative is a big deal. Toyota gives away vehicles to deserving non profit organizations around the country each year. To enter, each non profit must submit a video explaining how a new vehicle would benefit them, and then win the vote of the public on their designating voting day. Well, that day came and we spread the word like wildfire among the Fusz network and our social networks. There's a reason they call it the information super highway...word travels fast!

HavenHouse took the majority vote, was announced a winner, and graciously allowed us to be the dealership to present the new Toyota Sienna minivan they would be receiving. To make their delivery day more exciting, we held a fundraiser and collected money to literally fill the entire back of their new vehicle with supplies. We're talking things like toothpaste and hand sanitizer they could use for all the traveling guests that stay at HavenHouse's facility. We also made some customized HavenHouse decals and put them on their vehicle, and got our Allstate office inside the dealership to make a donation as well. When the day came, we had representatives from Toyota and families from HavenHouse come out to celebrate!

The best part about this morning was seeing the mobility seat of the Sienna in action. HavenHouse specifically picked this minivan because it is the only one of it's kind in America that comes with a built in seat that can accommodate passengers with disabilities.

Check out the AutoAccess Seat video below-

Congratulations again to HavenHouse St. Louis- we hope you love your Sienna, and we can't wait to see it on the road! 

A Double Dose of Charity

Tweet

The longer I tweet, post Facebook status updates, and blog, the more I seem to be slowly discovering and getting involved with the St. Louis community. Doing so has truly been one of the highlights of my job thus far.

In the past month, I rounded up several of my fellow Lou Fusz employees to take part in the Epilepsy Foundation's Seize the Day race. We had agreed to be a company sponsor for the event after meeting Becky and Deane, the ladies in charge of organizing the event. Seeing their grandson Cameron, who has epilepsy, really touched us, and motivated us to get involved. It was then that I thought to myself, "why not take it one step further?" 

I lent my knowledge and social media prowess to the gals and helped them in raising awareness. In the end, the race generated over $60,000, and I'm happy to report that all of our staff managed to finish the 3.1 mile trek through Kirkwood! Even more amazing, some of the guys immediately showered and went straight to work after the race (I on the other hand, hung around to meet Fred Bird and drink as much bottled water as I could).

Team Fusz, about 5 minutes before the ran began. Pat decided to show off the guns and forgo the race shirt...

The day before the race, another non-profit, Haven House St. Louis, asked for our help in generating votes for their entry in Toyota's 100 Cars for Good program. If you've never heard of the program, it's a great initiative on Toyota's part. They ask non-profits around the country to nominate themselves each year, and have the public vote on which groups should receive a Toyota vehicle to benefit their cause. I rallied around our office (and on our social sites, of course) to garner as many votes as possible. In the end, Haven House was declared a winner! I'm looking forward to seeing how the Toyota Sienna Mobility they chose will impact their ability to provide reliable, safe transportation for the people they help.

So what's next? Only time will tell. But I'm always looking for great opportunities to present to my GM, ones that show support for great causes in St. Louis or even in the community. If you know of such one, you're more than welcome to reach out to me and share your story. Follow me on Twitter at @Erocdotusa or @LouFuszToyota !