I think most of us can agree it’s been a bad year. But for a lot of us it’s been even worse thanks to the series of hurricanes that hammered the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The news has moved on to other things, but people in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico will be recovering from these storms for years. We at Jalopnik have long wanted to throw a car show for you readers, but this time we felt we needed to do it for a good cause.
UPDATE: Sadly the event has been postponed due to storms.
So on Sunday, Oct. 29, we’re throwing the first-ever Jalopnik Auto Show (think Detroit or LA, but cooler) and we’re sending the money we raise from that to three charities working hard to help people get their lives back on track across the country. You should come! Bring your cars! It’s only $10 to get in!
I’m from Texas, and at the end of August I watched Hurricane Harvey pummel Houston and the Gulf Coast. I saw friends and family lose their homes and businesses. Like a lot of you, I felt helpless and angry. Jalopnik’s Texas roots run deep, and we wanted to see if we could mobilize the best audience of car enthusiasts around to help.
Then it happened again, in Florida, then again, in Puerto Rico. And even as weeks have passed, rebuilding will take years.
But good people everywhere are stepping up left and right to help out. Now, if you’re in our neck of the woods, we’d love it if you could do the same. This is what car people do: when there’s work to be done, we roll up our sleeves, get our hands dirty and fix the problem.
And you don’t even have to do any of that! You just have to show up! (Unless something breaks down, obviously, and it might.)
We’ll be there and we hope you will be too. Let’s get a huge turnout of awesome vehicles for this. There will be a food truck too!
Bring your car, bring your friends, RSVP or pay at the door, and spend the afternoon hanging out with Team Jalopnik. We’ll take care of the rest.
Here are the details:
What: The Jalopnik Auto Show For Hurricane Relief. RSVP here.
Where: A big dang parking lot in New Jersey! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a huge vacant lot in the greater New York City area? This took weeks!
But the folks at Edison Properties kindly stepped up to donate a lot for us to use, and we’re grateful to them for it.
The address is 246 Market Street, Newark, New Jersey 07102.
When: Sunday, Oct. 29, from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. We’ll be there to move the cars into place. Get there early if you can, but we imagine cars will be coming in and out on a rolling basis.
Who: You! Bring whatever car or cars you want, whether it’s Jalop-tastic or just your boring daily. It doesn’t matter if you have a Morgan Three-Wheeler or a Honda Accord. Bring your friends. Bring your spouses. Bring your dogs.
All proceeds will be split three ways and donated directly to the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund, United For Puerto Rico and The Miami Foundation.
How Much: Just $10 a person to get in! RSVP here, or pay at the door. That’s $10 per person, not per car, by the way. And if you can’t make it but want to donate a ticket anyway, we’d be eternally thankful.
We hope you can make it out. It’ll be a fun time with some good cars (and probably questionable ones too, knowing you people) for a great cause.
This post has been updated.