Michael Bennett and Family Collecting Donations for Connecticut Children’s Hospital
Stafford Springs, CT — With the dawn of a new NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season, Stafford Late Model driver Michael Bennett and his wife Lindsay have announced that they will be taking donations to benefit the Connecticut Children’s Hospital throughout the year.
The Bennetts had their world turned upside down back in August of 2015 when their son Chace was diagnosed with leukemia. With Chace now on the road to recovery, the Bennett’s wanted to give something back to the CT Children’s Hospital that has helped Chace and so many other young children with life-threatening illnesses. Enter the Race for Chace Donation Box.
The Bennett’s will be collecting newly packaged Matchbox cars for the CT Children’s Hospital Prize Closet, which rewards young children with a gift after their treatment has been completed that day. Donations can be dropped off at the Speedway Novelty Booth at Stafford during racing season on Friday nights and this weekend’s NAPA Spring Sizzler. Anyone making a Matchbox car donation will receive a raffle ticket for a chance to win either a family four pack of tickets to the Monster Jam event in July at Stafford or the season-ending NAPA Fall Final Weekend. The first raffle drawing will take place on July 7th and the second drawing will take place on September 15th. Raffle winners will be contacted by phone if not present the day of the drawings.
“We got this idea when Chace would go in for his treatments, and especially when he first started going. The prize closet was a good way to get Chace to behave and allow the doctors to do what they needed to do,” said Bennett. “Now that he’s been there and he’s familiar with it, he knows he’s going to get to choose something from the prize closet when he goes in for a treatment and it keeps him very well behaved. All donations received at the novelty booth will go to the CT Children’s Hospital. We’re looking for newly packaged matchbox of any kind, we’re not limiting it to just racing. We also want people to know that they don’t have to drop off their donation at the track, they can get in touch with either myself or my wife through Facebook and we’ll accept donations from everywhere, not just at the track.”
Although he is currently on the road to recovery, Chace still visits the hospital once a month for treatments and he will continue to receive treatments until October 2018. Chace is active now in Little League and doing very well on the diamond.
“Chace is doing well now,” said Bennett. There’s certain sports that he can’t play like football and he can’t ride a go kart yet with how the harness has to be worn. Chace is in his second season of Little League playing baseball and he’s having a lot of fun with that right now.”
The first race of the 2017 season at Stafford is this weekend, April 29-30 and the track is racing every Friday night from May through September. Fans can bring their matchbox donations to the Speedway Novelty Booth located behind the turn 4 grandstands and they will receive their raffle tickets there when they make their donation.
For more information, contact the Stafford Motor Speedway track office at 860-684-2783 or visit us on the web at www.staffordspeedway.com.
Sources: Scott Running/Stafford Motor Speedway PR