Recap: You Rocked the Special Olympics Rock N Roll-a-thon!

After 15 months of not being able to participate or even fundraise for the Special Olympics, the folks from the Maine Law Enforcement Torch Run were ready to get things rolling again. And we were super stoked to be asked to help them in their initial effort.

We set up this awesome Classic Rock N Roll Request-a-thon and planned to play requests for pledges from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. today.

The day started bright and early with Orono Police Chief, Josh Ewing coming by to hang out, and kick off the donations by offering $100 on behalf of his family. Cori did the same, and within the first hour, we had drummed up $305 of donations...which was awesome.

After the coffee kicked in, and the Gosselin's Donuts were delivered (courtesy of our buddy, Engineer Mike) around 7 a.m., we started to get into a groove, to borrow a phrase from Madonna. And in hour we were up another $400!

Orono's Community Resource Officer, Ed Laskey came a little while later, and we put him to work manning the phones.

That was easily the best decision we made all morning. Ed, who is hands down one of the nicest people you'll ever have the pleasure to encounter, worked those phones with his friendliness, and we saw our hourly total jump up to $880 in the 8 a.m. hour and almost that high again in the 9 a.m.

Officer Ed has this great system of Special Olympic Sticky Notes that he had going, that helped up keep track of the all of the requests and pledges, as they came in.

The 10 a.m. hour was our biggest hour of the day, as we racked up $900 that hour--in part due to Officer Ed's positivity, and some sweet pledges from our buddy, Chief Chris Greeley of the Holden Police Department, and some hefty pledges from Downeast Toyota, Bangor Family Dentistry and Bangor Savings Bank.

At 11 a.m., Penobscot County Sheriff's Deputy (and former Orono Police Officer) Cam Barrieau, stopped in to donate another $100 (not to be outdone by Chief Ewing) and we got another matching donation from the Warden of the local correctional facility.

By noon we were up to about $4,000 and that was double what we had expected from the day!

Next in to hang out were Bangor's Resource Officer, Liz Ashe, and Sgt. Nickerson from Brewer PD.

Punch-drunk and super impressed by the number of amazingly generous donations and challenges that came pouring in. We got another $100 donation on behalf of the Orono Police Department.

The teachers in Orono stepped up to the plate with almost a dozen different pledges and awesome challenges. So many local businesses came forward to issue challenges and help this great cause.

But the highlight of the day was when we got to talk with longtime Special Olympian, Zack "Attack" Ewing. He told the listeners that they should , "Go Big Time" and inspired all of us with his descriptions of what the Special Olympics meant to him.

We played some country songs. We played some pop songs. We played some deep cuts and some strange B-sides of things. We even played "We Are The World" and "Scotland The Brave" on bagpipes. And you opened your hearts and your wallets and poured out a total of $6,365 of Special Olympics Maine with the help of the Maine Law Enforcement Torch Run Officers.

Overall, we were honored to be asked to help, humbled by your tremendous generosity and so psyched it all went off so well!  Thanks to you, all of the law enforcement officers and our amazing friends at Townsquare Media for making our first Special Olympic Classic Rock N Roll-a-thon a huge success. We can't wait to do it again next year!