it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff tiolis you can find our group on facebook we're also on twitter at pinball profile email us pinball profile at gmail.com and please subscribe on either itunes stitcher or google play joining somebody out on the road and a good chance he'll be on the road for quite some time. In fact, 46 days. Daniel Spoler is out again. It's the Love Across America Tour, the fourth one. In fact, the annual tour, and he joins us right now. Hey, Daniel, how are you? I'm doing pretty good. Just happened to be crossing into Connecticut at this moment. Logging a lot of miles. In fact, you're going to be visiting 21 different states, but more importantly, how many hospitals are you going to be seeing? We're going to be visiting nine hospitals, placing pinball machines in each one of them. And the first of nine is going to be placed on Monday, correct? Yes, that is correct, in Middletown, Middletown, New York. Is this a new hospital for you? Because I know some of the ones you've been at before, and I know you're trying to spread the wealth across America. Tell us about this one. This one's a brand new location to us. It's right in the backyard of Rock Fantasy, Stephen Keeler, Howard Levine. They've been huge supporters and they've been working hard in their community to raise funds. So we felt it was, you know, time to put one in Middletown. So we had a doctor approach us, which was real good timing, and it all came together relatively quick. So it looks like we have a CERN Ford Mustang Tim Hall machine coming in there on Monday. That's great. It's a fun game to play for sure, and I'm sure the kids will like it. Now, we all know about the charity and we know about raising the funds and the raffle and the other things that you do throughout different shows and throughout the year but when it comes to actually getting a pinball machine in a hospital that's not easy it really isn't what we try to do is our florida-based charity becomes local when people in those communities contact us because what we do is something different something special for communities across the united states and uh hopefully canada and i want to talk to you guys about that soon. But what they do is they reach out to us and they find out that any money that they raise on behalf for us to make this happen stays local to them. So it's kind of a Florida-based charity becoming local to do great things. We do the heavy lifting. We do all the contracts. We sign contracts and agreements with the hospitals. We have insurance and everything. But, you know, if people love what they hear that our charity does, All they have to do is contact us, and it starts the ball rolling to how they could affect their local community, maybe through their children's hospital or Ronald McDonald's home that would be local to them. You talk about this being based out of Florida, but this really is across the country. 9,000 miles you're going to be driving over this 46-day period, and we're going to keep in touch and find out how this goes along and post that on Project Pinball's website and on Facebook, too. So the community has really been wonderful for helping donate. And you know, I wonder what more we can do. You know, we certainly reach out to you when we see these events and we see these raffles, but let's think about it. You're driving 9000 miles. If anybody listening and we do have a few thousand people listening if anybody listening that might have a contact for a car company a gas company insurance whatever the case may be these are hard expenses that have to come out of the Project Pinball Fund And wouldn't it be great to be able to supplement those with maybe some of these sponsors if possible? So I know you're looking for that too, aren't you, Daniel? Without a doubt. We started this back in 2015 to cut to overhead. And I found out the best way is to have myself go on the road because I'm a full-time volunteer. I don't take a salary or anything like that. So we could slash the overhead trying to get to these different locations if we group them together in the month's time. We knew that we would be there maybe for the bigger shows like Papa and Pinberg and Pintastic and California Extreme. So we would put our dedications there. That way, when we were at the shows, we could tell people about what we were doing. But now it has grown so big. Like this year, we're dedicating nine machines, which is the biggest that we've had so far. And I'm still driving my personal vehicle, the Escalade that I have. And I put on like 100,000 miles just for the charity alone. And it's starting to show signs of where it's at. So we have to look forward to getting some really nice sponsorship. maybe just for some gasoline. It costs around $3,700 for a trip like that. So if we could get maybe a sponsorship from Shell or Mobile, one of the bigger corporations, I would think that would be a pocket change to these guys. But it could mean the world to us so we could do more and more great things. I mean, there's so many sponsorships out there that I could think of. Our food a lot. I wouldn't mind having a sponsorship from, like, Subway, because I find myself stopping there when I'm on the road because I don't eat fast food at any time. And that seems to be the only choice that I have when I pull off the road to get fuel or gasoline. So, you know, there's many, many different ways. Maybe Michelin Tire would like to sponsor, you know, four brand-new tires before we hit the road. That would be fine by us. Anything could help. And it doesn't have to be, you know, large like that. I mean, if people want to type and say, hey, let me throw a sticker on your car or an advertise, we're okay with that too. We're driving 9,000 miles, 46 states on the road. We're going to see 25 different large cities, 21 states that we're going to visit. that could be some good coverage if someone wants to start some graphics on the side of the bar. Don't get me started, I guess. Daniel, do you have some people maybe on the PR side at the hospitals that are there for some sort of big presentation so that they can get some more press on this and so that some of these cities that you're going into can maybe don't know anything about it, but now they find out about Project Pinball and what's going on at these hospitals, maybe they can donate that way. What kind of coverage are you getting when you're actually at the hospitals? Well, what we do is we start with a strong relationship with the hospital, and we ask the host hospital, what would you like? Because some of these hospitals, they just want something quiet. They want something to be based on the kids and the parents, and we're okay with that. But when we have the opportunity, and a hospital really sees the benefit of reaching out, maybe approaching a news station or maybe radio or something like that We work on press releases in maybe with their marketing department as well They reach out we reach out and we try to get as much coverage as we can because we found out every time that someone else could say Project Pinball, it makes it grow that much faster and it becomes personal to all the individuals. Their contact with our charity makes it their own. So, yeah, we try every single avenue. That's why I love the podcast like yourself. It reaches a different audience other than something that would be local maybe to, you know, Omaha, where we're going to be in a couple days for dedication. So I love anything, and I'm not opposed to, you know, talking to pretty much any outlet that there is. Anything to help the charity grow. and you have grown and it's something that is really a passion for many of us i'm a father of three and knock on wood you know luckily my children haven't had to spend any extensive time in any hospitals and just it's very discomforting for a child to have to go through whatever that sickness is to be at the hospital not in their own bed to be separated from families and i'll say this no parents should be separated from their kids well i definitely agree with that We see the impact that it has not only on the patients that play the pinball machine, but it can be their siblings because their siblings right beside them going through it as well. And the parents are there. The parents are going through something that is foreign to them, something new that they are, you know, trying to educate themselves. And, you know, in the meantime, they're stressed out trying to do what's best for their family. So sometimes we find that the parents, you know, after they tuck in the kids and everything like that, they have a chance to relax by playing pinball too. So, you know, it really helps the family dynamic. And I was just talking to a hospital earlier, going through some details, and they were asking if the staff members could play it in the position. And I said, why not? You know, it's there for them to relieve maybe some stress or, you know, distract them from, you know, maybe something that's bothering them for the day as well. So we encourage everybody that's there, if you have a physician, it could be a doctor, a nurse, we really don't care as long as it's beneficial. And I guess if they don't play it so much that they keep the kids from it, that might be a bad thing. No, I agree. I think there's some high stress levels there and some anxieties and just things, again, luckily I don't have to deal with, but whatever relieves any of these people, I think that's a great thing. It's very therapeutic. And for the children, they forget the sickness. They forget that they're in a hospital and maybe going through some tests or whatever the case may be. I think it's beautiful, and I see the excitement on the kids' faces. We're going to post a video that you made on Project Pinball so that we can share it with people. And I imagine the first time you did this, you knew this was my calling. You know, it just came together. The first time that we did it, I had a personal experience with myself that I could relate. I am a father of three as well. They're now grown. You know, we went through some difficult times, so I can you know recognize the look on the parents faces when we going into these dedications and everything like that And then all of a sudden you know there might be some tension in the room until the machine is turned on and everybody plays. It seems like there's a transformation that happens very quickly. The one thing that I would like to point out is the trailer that we just put together. I love that because I was at the dedication. There was the one in Atlanta, and there's two girls standing in front of the machine. I'm standing right behind them. And I witnessed this doll that was very cherished by the one daughter. That was the one toy that she could, you know, take to the hospital with her. And all of a sudden, as soon as she found out she could play pinball, she quickly discarded it without even looking, handing it to her sister so she could play quickly. You know, she wanted quick access to this machine. And all of a sudden, the smile just appeared. And I was able to witness that. You know, in the seconds that it happened, I'm like, wow, that's just amazing. You know, something like that is just great to witness. And we were able to catch that on film and be able to share that. But that happens all the time at our publication. I have stories that would blow people away. Well, when I call you, Daniel, next and we do some follow-up on this 46-day journey, we'll get some of those stories, okay? I'm more than willing to share them. They had an impact on my life, and hopefully I could tell it to the best where they have an impact on the people listening as well. Daniel, safe travels. Thank you for doing this wonderful thing with Project Pinball for the kids, for the hospitals. It means a lot to all of us, and we're going to keep in touch over this little trek. The fourth annual Love Across America Tour, all thanks to you, Daniel Spoler from Project Pinball. Thank you, Jeff. Appreciate you having me on board like this. You know, it makes the time go fast behind the wheel. It's a lot of miles, for sure. And for those who wonder, he's doing it by himself, too. So if you want to reach out to Daniel, I'm sure he'd appreciate it. And you can do so at projectpinball.com, also on Facebook, too. And we should also give a quick shout-out to some of the wonderful sponsors that you have had come on board. I know Stern Pinball and Marco Specialties have been great sponsors for you. Yeah, we had a lot of great sponsors this year. Jersey Jack as well, Spooky Pinball. We got American. We're all going to visit, do factory tours this year, which is something new. Marco is a huge supporter. He's been a supporter of ours since 2011, always in the background, love his family. Stern, what can I say? They've been there from the very beginning, helping us along the way. Yeah, we have a little shop at Gaines. He's been a huge supporter from the very beginning as well. He's a Stern dealer. He's just a great friend and supporter. Daniel, we'll talk to you soon, okay? Okay, have fun, and I'll talk to you a couple miles down the road. okay good luck this has been your pinball profile you can find our group on Facebook we're also on Twitter at pinball profile email us pinballprofile at gmail.com and please subscribe on either iTunes Stitcher or Google Play and please check out projectpinball.com I'm Jeff Teola you