Mike Harmon, driver of the #74 NASCAR Xfinity Series Challenger, will have a new decal, truckersfinalmile.org, on the hood of his car next weekend. Mike recently became aware of this organization when a very close friend lost a family member, a big rig driver, while on a run. With no means or finances available to bring him home, the family began a search for any organization or charity that could help bring him back to his family. That search resulted in finding www.truckersfinalmile.org founded by trucker Robert Palm of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The family was extremely grateful and when Mike learned of this charity and how they were able to help this family and realizing the potential connections with the drivers of the many racecar haulers so he decided to bring awareness to this organization by putting their decal for on his car beginning next weekend.
Robert Palm, founder of non profit www.truckersfinalmile.org, experienced the need for just such an organization in 1996 when his step brother, also a truck driver, passed away in an accident while on a “run”. With funds limited making long distance arrangements took time and the money was needed before anyone would even consider helping. It took 8 weeks to have his brothers body returned to the family for the funeral and burial. That added even more emotional distress at a time when the family and friends were already overcome with their loss. “There are a lot of families out there who are living paycheck to paycheck and the wives at home are, basically, single parents when the husband is out on the road for weeks at a time, or vice versa. I have personally experienced the need for this kind of help. When I lost my step brother, I knew that this kind of help was needed and it sort of festered through the years. He died in 1996 and I crashed the following year. I witnessed a lady trucker roll her truck several times in front of me. I cradled her in my arms waiting for Life Flight to arrive. All she could talk about was her 2 boys and I wondered how she was going to get back to her sons. That was the breaking point.. After she was air lifted I knew I had to do something, that something had to be done but I didn’t know how to go about it.”
“When I got home I told my wife that this has got to be done and that now I’m going to do this. There are people out there that need help and I think I’ve got a way to do this. Frankly I believe the Lord led me on this path and we followed his lead. I’m a trucker like anyone else and we focused on what it takes to do this, focused on the regulations and establishing the corporation. We now have a good Board Of Directors behind us and we did the ground work and the paper work and got it going. This the end result”
“We filed out the initial corporate paperwork in September of 2013 and it was approved in the state of New Mexico in April of 2014. Of course that all takes money and we did it on a truckers payroll. Then we went through the IRS to get the designation as a charity. That took until August of 2014. That year was spent building websites, writing programs and getting everything in play as to getting ready to go. We helped our first case in June of 2015. To date we’ve helped 33 people.”
“Like any other charity we rely on donations only. Donations are important to allow us to operate and they are coming from people on social media. The $5 and $10 add up so we can spend $1400 or $1500 on a case. None of us take any salary, any renumeration in any form for doing this. Our focus is helping the families of truck drivers. Many companies of the drivers don’t help because of the status they have.”
“There are some well known companies who rate charities and we are the highest rated charity serving the trucking industry. We’ve built up a good reputation and a good rapport with those that rate charities. Now we need to focus on obtaining sponsors and more money so we can fulfill this mission and do so in a more timely fashion.”
“I didn’t know anything like this existed,” Harmon said. “I can see the need for something like this and I saw, first hand, how much relief this gives families facing these problems. When I heard about it I wanted to help. In times like this money becomes an issue and that can make it all so much more difficult on the family. Whether your family member is injured or deceased you still need to get them home. Traveling across country to get them home makes the situation more difficult and impossible in many cases. I do want to help make people aware that help is available and hope that this organization can receive more donations that will make it easier for them to help more people. Racing and truck driving go hand in hand in many ways and hopefully this will help get the word out.”
Obviously this organization is one that we all can understand and appreciate. They survive and assist exclusively with donations. You can find more information on them at truckersfinalmile.org
You can also find them on Twitter and Facebook
Note: Richard Hood, Travis Rice and Natosha Rice, children of Karl Rice, would like to say thank you to this charity for getting their father home.
