On Friday December 19th, 2008, the Arizona Ghostbusters had the great honor of attending the Snowball Express at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Snowball express is an organization and event dedicated to creating new memories for families that have lost loved ones in the American Armed Forces during combat. The overall event covers several days including a day at Disneyland and Universal Studios. All travel, lodging, and entertainment expenses are covered for the families and everything is donated by the sponsors even down to the fuel for the airplanes. Over 1,000 participants were brought in from around the country for the event.
 

We were in invited to participate in the carnival day held at the convention center. Alot of the major sponsors of the event had booths set up with games and handouts. Oakley gave out special Snowball Express sunglasses and watches to the families for example. One of the largest booths was set up by a local Pirate costuming club in California. They had a band set up and several of the cast from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies with them. Other costumers walking around were Santa Claus, Geoge Washington, Elmo, Minnie Mouse, Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Snow White, Wildwing from the Anaheim Ducks, the Nesquik Bunny and even a Steven Spielberg and Jack Nicholson impersonators. Motorcycles and classic cars were also on display as well as R/C planes, facepainting, etc. A few celebrities including Nestor Carbonell (The Mayor in Dark Knight) and skater Bob Burnquist were also there.

The event started with the "Walk of Gratitude" outside the convention center. All of the volunteers lined up along the sidewalk and waved flags as families walked by into the center. The response we recieved was overwhelming and I believe we set a new record of the number of small children recognizing Ghostbusters. We handed our AZ logo stickers to all the children we took pictures with and were glad to see them all wearing them throughout the day. It was an amazing experience to be able to attend this event and see that the American spirit is still alive. These families losses are incalculable, but I'm glad we were part of something giving back to them. One memory I know our team will keep is when a small boy came up to us and said "Thank You."

Click On Photo for Full Gallery

On Saturday December 6th the Arizona Ghostbusters participated in a holiday toy drive at local collectable toy store Toy Anxiety. This was the 3rd year the team has helped at the event and were joined by the local 501st and Rebel Legions. All toys collected were distributed between the local childrens' hospitals. The night before the toy drive, on December 5th, the team set up a booth at the downtown Phoenix 1st Friday Art Walk to collect donations to buy toys for the event. A truckload of toys was collected at the event. We'd like to thank Toy Anxiety for hosting the event and to everyone who stopped by and made a donation.

Click On Photo for Full Gallery