O’Daniel Chrysler Jeep Donates $8,000 to Local Veterans Organizations

O’Daniel Chrysler Jeep of Fort Wayne took on the task of collecting used and old cell phones for a Chrysler sponsored promotion to benefit Operation Gratitude www.operationgratitude.com, an organization that sends care packages to U.S troops overseas. Part of the promotion was if they succeeded in collecting the most phones in their region they would receive $5000 to donate to a military charity of their choice. Little did they know Fort Wayne would serve up so much support! Not only did O’Daniel Chrysler Jeep win the regional award they actually collected more phones than any
other dealer in the country. In addition, for the month of February O’Daniel was the #1 retailing dealer for all Chrysler store in Indiana!

In conjunction with O’Daniel’s annual Jeep Jam festival, where they raised $3000 for the Fort Wayne Chapter of the Disable American Veterans, They will be donating a total of $8,000 to local veteran’s organizations. The $5,000 check presentation to the local veteran’s center will take place at the Fort Wayne Komet’s home game on Friday March 27, where members from the O’Daniel organization and Chrysler will present the donation to the organization members.

Craig Ruskaup, Sales Manager for O’Daniel Chrysler Jeep, took on the task of organizing the collection efforts. He solicited local businesses, the media and customers to help spread the awareness of the program. “I just felt like this was one thing we could do locally to support our troops globally,” Ruskaup commented.

Ruskaup’s efforts’ turned out to be world class as boxes and boxes of phones started pouring in last fall. After the dealership sent all the phones in to the collection center it was several months before they found out the good news that not only they collected the most phones for their region and won the $5,000, but they had collected nearly two thirds of all phone collected in the United States.

For more information about this information please contact Craig Ruskaup at (260) 435-5331, cruskaup@odanielauto.com or Greg O’Daniel (260) 435-5441, godaniel@odanielauto.com.