By JONATHAN ZWEYGARDT
Hays Post
The Thunder on the Plains Car Show capped off another successful summer event with the recent donation of more than $31,000 to local organizations, including nearly $17,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Missouri and Kansas.
In June, the Thunder committee marked its ninth-annual car and truck show with a return to downtown Hays and the continued desire to raise money for local organizations and nonprofits.
The group surpassed the $100,000 donation mark in 2023, but Thunder on the Plains secretary and treasurer Jackie Lang said they wanted to do something even bigger.
"We've been talking about expanding, something where we could get into something larger. We still want to support our local organizations. We don't want to just forget about them," Lang said, "but we wanted to get into something bigger."
Lang said the partnership with Make-a-Wish was extra special for her family after her oldest son, Brett, received his wish to go to Disney World in 2010. Brett died from cancer two years later.
Lang’s husband, Mark, who was a big part of the Thunder on the Plains group, died unexpectedly this past Christmas Eve, and she said he was a huge supporter of the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
“Make-a-Wish was really big in his heart because of our son, Brett,” Lang said. “So, we just felt like it was a good time to move forward with that.”
Stephanie Hampton-Boeglin is the chief operating officer for Make-a-Wish Missouri and Kansas and was in Hays to celebrate the donation earlier this summer.
She said more than 700 children are waiting to receive a wish, and the organization has seen a significant decline in funding since the end of the pandemic.
Hampton-Boeglin said Make-a-Wish was searching for funding to provide wishes for kids in the Hays community when she began talking to Lang about the group’s fundraising efforts and said their effort was “incredible.”
“I do believe that it was some type of divine intervention that we had that call,” Hampton-Boeglin said. “I was in tears. Jackie was in tears.”
Hampton-Boeglin said the money raised will benefit families locally.
“Everybody rallies around one another. So, if one person in the community is really battling something, the whole town rallies around that,” Hampton-Boeglin said. “What I love about Thunder on the Plains is they spread so much joy in wealth, not just wealth in money, but wealth in heart. And to me, that is exactly why anybody, I think, should grow up in a small town.”
At the June car show, children who had been recipients of wishes came and enjoyed the event. One local 3-year-old, Damon Sheeley from Victoria, who is receiving leukemia treatments, will get to take his family to Disney World in December. They had planned to announce the reveal of Damon’s wish at the car show, but he was not feeling well.
Hampton-Boeglin said the event was great for those who got to attend.
"It really brought some light—some light to some dark times for our families," Hampton-Boeglin said. "For them to be able to tell some kids that they're going to Disney World or they're going on their wishes coming true, the amount of joy that brings to the entire family is priceless."
She also praised the efforts of the community.
"Obviously, we can't do this alone. It does take a village, and the Hays village spoke loud and clear. They're sending children to Disney World, and they're getting their wishes," Hampton-Boeglin said.