(This is Wayne talking, hello everyone ????!)

“Well then, that just happened.
So where oh where do I even begin…?

People, it’s been a long ride so far (pun intended).
There have been smooth cruises, speed bumps, phenomenal successes, and many lessons learned.

This, however, was a hallmark moment, and a symbolic achievement that I (and we) will never forget.

I’ve always been great with my words, and the good Lord blessed me with the “Gift of Gab” I suppose, but for first the time in a long time… I’m legitimately speechless.

It’s not entirely about the amount of funding, as that is only half the story; in terms of financial support we have been so fortunate over the years and we have dozens of incredibly generous grantors, sponsors, and individual donors to thank for that (no genuinely, thank you so very much). No, this is mainly about what this achievement represents, and the emblematic “Impact” that this is subsequently going to create for our organization.

Can I tell you a story?

For those of you who have children, you know how they say “it takes a village”? Turns out they were absolutely right, huh?
I don’t have children myself, so forgive me for the comparison, but The Safe Ride Foundation has always been my “baby” in a lot of ways, and it’s taken a village to raise this as well.

By a village, I mean all of you.

When we started back in 2015, and people can attest to this, I used to drive the majority of people myself. One, because I loved meeting all of you awesome people, and two because volunteers are always scarce when you start any organization, it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort.

Today, we have 20 amazing SUPERHEROES that are out here every week making sure that we don’t create any more stories of victims. Keep in mind that we close at 2:00am guys, and that they give up their precious weekend nights just to do that for us. It’s truly admirable, and I thank every single one of them for that.

When we started, no one knew who we were of course, and no one believed it was real (no, really haha).
Marketing is one thing, but ultimately it took all of you who took a chance on us, to spread the word, to sing our praises, and to let your friends and loved ones know… “Don’t get in that vehicle, it’s not worth it… and I have a better solution.”

There’s no excuse to drink and drive, however people still manage to do it. The reason that the Safe Ride Foundation and SOS Safe Ride exist, is not to drive people home in their vehicles… because literally, ANYONE could do that, and that part is easy.

Our sole mission as a nonprofit is to eliminate the problem completely in Frederick County, and to change habits by showing the community that you have absolutely every option to get home safely. It’s about invalidating excuses.
SOS Safe Ride exists so that you won’t be able to use the excuse of “Well I needed my car”… because guess what, Frederick thought of that one too. The goal… is to make sure that when you go out and you have a good time, that you WON’T get behind the wheel afterward.

That’s the goal, that’s the mission of this nonprofit. And we’ve said it before, so now we’ll shout it again… whether you’re walking home, asking a sober friend, getting a taxi, getting an uber, taking a bus, or getting your vehicle home with SOS Safe Ride…. as long as you’re not behind the wheel of your vehicle, that is a Mission Accomplished for us. Plain and Simple.

On behalf of the Safe Ride Foundation, we’d like to humbly, genuinely, and proudly thank the ImpactClub organization and members for bestowing this amazing and quite frankly hefty gift upon us. With this funding, we can now go from our current success story of 11,000 total rides completed, to well over 20,000 by the end of 2020, which is indescribable.

This was an amazing night, and we call on every single one of you to JOIN the ImpactClub right now, so that in February they can bless yet another Frederick nonprofit in the same way that they have blessed us.

As our busiest part of the year (pretty much every day between Thanksgiving Eve and New Year’s Eve) approaches…. we call on our “village” to support.
Volunteer your time with us, consider becoming a member of Safe Ride PLUS [www.SafeRidePLUS.org], and do everything you can to spread this message.

We’re all in this together guys, we are the Safe Ride Foundation and we FIGHT to make sure that there are zero drunk drivers in Frederick County, so please consider fighting with us.”

Thank you so very much,
-Wayne Dorsey