Thursday Night Cruisers make donation to Mustang Fire Department

By Jacob Sturm
[email protected]

Members of the Thursday Night Cruisers were on scene at the Mustang Masonic Lodge this past
weekend and made a significant contribution to the Mustang Fire Department while there.

MFD Chief Craig Carruth accepted a donation through a check totaling $1,000 from the club.
Steve Rose, the Thursday Night Cruisers President, explained where the funding for the
donation came from.

“The first $1,000 is from our results at our car show at the park back in June,” Rose said. “We
do meetings down there. These guys are always open and helpful to us. So, we really strongly
support them and the Police Department here in town.”

Officially, the fundraising event is called the ‘Thursday Night Cruisers Pack the Park Car Show’,
which Rose said is already being planned again for next year.

In years past, the club has done a Fire Department-specific car show, but had a smaller turnout
than they anticipated at the time. Rose said the plans changed to help boost the numbers for
the Fire Department’s benefit.

“So, we did this one, and we’re hoping next year will be twice what we had, which was 177
cars,” Rose said. “We’re hoping to up that by twice. This year we’re featuring a picture plaque,
which means we have a black marble plaque that’ll have our Thursday Night Cruisers decal on it
and then a picture of your car by the aircraft.”

Rose said the club is confident the idea will draw a big crowd.

Rose and Carruth have known each other for quite some time and Rose reiterated that the club
has enjoyed being able to do anything the Fire Department needs to help them out and be
there for them.

Carruth said donations like the ones Thursday Night Cruisers provided the Mustang Fire
Department will be taken into the Mustang Oklahoma Firefighters Association. He said that
money is taken and used to bless other firefighters depending on what is going on.

“And then we’ll use it to obviously bless back to the community as a whole to different events
and venues that we host as well,” Carruth said.

Carruth said the Thursday Night Cruisers have blessed the MFD quite a bit in their time.

“We’re just grateful and thankful to have partnerships and people that obviously recognize and
care and really want to have those events to raise money and support our emergency services
as a whole,” Carruth said. “It’s a big deal. So, we appreciate it.”

Thursday Night Cruisers is a nonprofit club, and the proceeds that are made from their shows
go back into the community. The club is 80 members strong.