AMillionThanks’ blog

I had a great opportunity to be a part of an elite group last week. The top 200 Buick, Pontiac, and GMC dealers had their annual Select Dealers meeting at the Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel. The dealers and their spouses were flown out to have a series of meetings about upcoming events, new promotions, and the introduction of some new products. Unfortunately, that’s all I know about their “secret” meetings, but I was assured BPG has some pretty cool things up their sleeves. The dealers were told about my program and how they were going to be involved. For the first part of the day, I was the surprise to the group of dealers when I got to go on stage and briefly speak to them and thank them for their help. However, the second part of the evening was the bigger surprise. Jay Leno was the entertainer for the night. My parents, my boyfriend, and I were treated to dinner while we got to listen to Jay’s comedic routine. After the day was over, I was greeted by the majority of the dealers who expressed their excitement the involvement of my program with BPG. Every single one of them was thrilled to help me collect letters; some of them had so pretty wild ideas.

My next travel destination in conjunction with A Million Thanks was Atlanta, Georgia, for the Country Fair sponsored by GMC. Along with the country artists performing, there were games to be played, food to be eaten, and a GMC Sierra to be won. The big name performers for this event were Gretchen Wilson and Trace Adkins. Those two played on the main stage while the new up and coming artis,ts performed on the smaller stage. To spread the word of A Million Thanks, I got to go up on both stages to tell people how they can help. I even got to spin the “BINGO cage” to pick the winner of the brand new Sierra. GMC, who sponsored the event, had my collection box at their booth with some stationary and pens. Every time I looked over, there were people crowded around the box waiting to write their letter. There were about 25,000 people there who were pretty excited to find out they could write to the troops, so if each person writes a letter and tells three other people about it, that’s 100,000 letters!

With May being National Military Appreciation Month, you can imagine that it is an incredibly busy time for this program. We are getting requests from soldiers for mail almost daily, various organizations are asking me to speak to their members, and I’m traveling almost every weekend. In addition to this, May is also incredibly busy as I get closer to my graduation date (about three weeks away). Though seniors don’t have to take finals, I do have quite a few projects to do. Luckily, I’ve finished most of them, but I still have a couple of the more difficult ones to complete. May is also the “Senior month” at my school. We have the senior BBQ, our senior farewell chapel, ditch day, prom, and graduation practices. This is all okay though, because I work better under stress.

I had my senior prom last weekend. I barely had enough time to get ready. I went to Florida, Detroit, and New York all in the two weeks before prom. We had a blast, though. I went with my boyfriend, Matt, who I’ve been dating for about two and a half years along with the other five couples in our group. We took a Hummer limo and spent the night dancing and had a caricature artist draw us as superheroes.

Though the month gets busier, I still find time for my schoolwork and fun time. I’m lucky I have such great helpers behind me and such a supportive family.

When I was in Michigan, I had an awesome opportunity to go to the Delta Township plant in Lansing. This plant is the newest to the General Motors Family and makes the new Buick Enclave as well as two other GM makes.
    The tour started with a brief safety video, made in the 80’s of course, and then we had to put on goggles and cover up any metal on our body. This included any rings or metal on clothing. We toured through the assembly part of the plant, meaning the cars were already cut, shaped, and painted and needed to be put together. I got to meet some of the workers and see the different jobs they had. We got to see how they wired the car, put in the dashboard and seats, assembled the engine and framing (called “marriage”), and fasten the gas tank. There were different groups of people assigned to a job; it reminded me of a mini Nascar team. It was astonishing how efficient each team was. So efficient that one car comes off the assembly line every fifty-two minutes. From a roll of sheet metal to the finished product, it takes about twenty hours.

Even though it was a GM plant, I could help but thinking what Henry Ford would say if he could see how his assembly line has transformed. General Motors is one of the only car companies that relies more on manual labor than machine work, which reaffirmed my decision that my next car will be a GM. It was such a reassuring feeling to know real people were working on these cars. If every person could have had that tour, I can guarantee they would have traded in their car the next day for a GM.

    After meeting with BPG’s PR team, the goal was to do as many interviews as possible before and during the month of May to make sure the word of wanting to collect one million letters was heard by everyone. The first part of that included a trip to New York two days after I got back from Detroit for a “media round,” as I call it.
    To get of the subject for a second, another thing going on right now is a little thing called my Senior year of high school. At this point, I am just over a month away from graduation – June 9th to be exact, 25 days to be even more exact. So the good thing is that for Seniors, if you have an 85% or higher in the class, you don’t have to take the final. I’m taking five classes and I am a straight A student, so I don’t have to worry too much. Apparently I didn’t read the fine print, though. The way my sneaky teachers get away with that is by assign a MASSIVE final project. This is worse, I would rather just take the final. Projects take weeks of effort and perfection, finals just take one night of cramming and the day of the test. Needless to say, my plane trips consist of homework.
    Okay, so back on track. In New York, I was on FOX and I did about 30 radio and television interviews from a satellite studio, which is basically sitting in a chair with an earpiece talking to the air in front of you. It was great to know that so many people were going to hear about my program, which means more letters ; )  I love to do interviews, just maybe not when I have to get up at 4:30am to do them. Then for the first three hours, I do them as I’m sleeping.
    We got to have a night out on the town and saw the musical, 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; it was hilarious. The best part was myself and three other audience members got to be in the show as spelling contestants! It was so much fun! If you are ever in New York, go see that show and try to get in it; you will have a blast!
    That concluded my New York trip and the next day we flew back home. The next big thing to overcome is Prom. May is going to be very exciting month. It involves the Woodstock of country music, a motorcycle ride, and this former softball player’s involvement at a White Sox game. Stay tuned, there’s a lot coming up!

    It was less than two weeks ago when I got the call that General Motors wanted to do something for National Military Appreciation Month. For the month of May, Buick, Pontiac, and GMC dealerships around the country asked if they could help me collect 1,000,000 more letters by putting collection boxes in their dealerships.
    To help spread the word, they asked that I filmed three commercials to air in May. Mind you, I received the call April 6 and I was supposed to leave just over two weeks later. The week I got the call, I wasn’t even actually at home. I was in Los Angeles for a program called Girls in the Director’s Chair, which gives girls the knowledge and experience to become great directors in Hollywood. Out of thousands of applicants, I was chosen to be a part of a ten-girl West Coast team to create, cast, shoot, and edit and ten-minute short film. Our team goes against the East Coast team and the winner gets to go back to LA in June for a premier. I was already excited to even be a part of that program, but when my mom told me that I was going to get to work with General Motors, I was even more excited!
    So two weeks went by and I was on my way to Palm Beach, Florida to film the first and last commercial. Even having a 6:30am call time for both shoot days, I was so excited to meet everyone involved. Now, my boyfriend is an independent filmmaker currently making his first feature, so being on a film set wasn’t completely new to me. I have also done some acting for high school, so that wasn’t new to me either. But nothing could have prepared me for the two shoot days. I have never met a nicer group of people in my entire life. Everyone wanted to know how they could help when they got back home. All the extras were amazing and so much fun to get to know. I was telling my parents that I would have a hard time filming a movie because I get to attached to everyone working on the project. After the second day was over, I pulled the director aside and told him thank you for making everything so much fun and I had to fight back the tears. And everyone in my life can testify that I’m not a big crier unless something really touches me. I was just so awestruck by everyone’s congeniality.
    To film the second commercial, we flew to Detroit, where GM’s headquarters are. But just outside of Lansing, there is a place most people have never heard of before. It’s called the VFW National Home for Children and it is a community that families of anyone who has served or are serving in a foreign war can live. BPG has already donated millions of dollars to help make the community even larger, but for the month of May, they want to donate one million dollars more. Filming a commercial there and being able to communicate with kids and spouses of military personnel was completely eye-opening for me. I befriended one four year old whose dad was in the military. She helped me make cards for the military, and though she didn’t completely understand what exactly was going on, she had so much passion when she was drawing pictures on her card. It’s sad that there are hundreds of these homes across the country that most of the American population have no idea even exist, and that included me.

The people I got to work with from Avalon Films, BPG, and McCannErikson have absolutely touched my life, and this promotion isn’t even over yet.

Welcome to the A Million Thanks Blog!  This is where I will be documenting the entire month of May for National Military Appreciation Month.  A Million Thanks is where you can learn about how you can give thanks to our military by sending them a letter.

Everyone needs a thank you, especially our troops.  Check back here often to see the progress!

Thanks,
Shauna