August 7, 2024 • 11 mins
We spoke with Jenn McCulloch, Assistant Director of the Hometown Foundation, about the Dream Ride Experience coming to Farmington, Connecticut Friday, August 23rd through Sunday, August 25th.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Alison Demrz and you're listening to Community Access today.
I'm with Jen McCullough, assistant director of the Hometown Foundation.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's truly an amazing event that's coming up called the
Dream Ride Experience at the end of August.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It is August twenty third, twenty fourth, and twenty fifth.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Tell us what's it all about.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Wow, that's a hard question. There's a lot of stuff there,
a lot that happens.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
So the biggest thing to know about the Dream Right
Experience is it is in celebration of our dream writers,
and those are individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities or
those fighting a challenge in their lives, and we take
this weekend to really celebrate all that they overcome in
their everyday lives and just kind of cheer them on
(00:46):
and show them that they've got this whole entire community
behind them. And it's really great not only for that,
but they get to connect with each other, so really
building those relationships and then showing them that there's this
gigantic community out there that's dwelling to come together and
make this beautiful event for them that has so much
to do all weekend long. There's literally something for everybody.
(01:07):
If you can't find something to do or enjoy a
dream ride, then let us know and we'll add it
next year.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I don't think that's going to happen. Take us through
the days, how will they go about?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
So we open Friday, August twenty third. The highlight that
night we have a polo match that happened. So the
Farmington Polo Club is our host site and they do
polo every Saturday May to October, and so that week
they moved to Friday night for us, and really fun
to come out and see the polo match. A lot
(01:41):
of people have never seen one before, so it's definitely
fun to check out. After the polo match, We've got
an amazing auction that's going to happen, so that's going
to be really fun. We're gonna do f one Miami
ticket so those are a big hot commodity.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Nice watching gifts, yeah, really fun.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Got a luxury kitchen makeover donated by s k Lavery,
so that's really exciting as well.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Who doesn't want brand new kitchen?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Sure, you know, we might throw a car in there,
maybe a motorcycle. So it's just kind of how we
roll at the Hometown Foundation, so it's gonna be great.
And then we've got a great DJ and so there'll
be dancing on Friday night as well, which our dream
riders really love, so really fun to go and dance
the night away with them at the end of the evening.
(02:30):
In addition, obviously we've got food vendors, we've got some
a family fund zone with different entertainment for the kids.
We recently adopted a bunch of baby goats, so the
goats will be around, so they're definitely a great fun attraction.
And then that leads us into Saturday, and Saturday's gonna
look a little different than past years because we have
(02:52):
moved our Dream Ride the motorcycle portion to Saturday mornings,
so this is definitely a change from past years, but
really excited about it. We've got a lot of the
local Harley dealers on board, so they are going to
be satellite locations. And in addition, if a motorcyclist prefers
a police escorted ride, they can come to the Polo
(03:12):
Club and we'll have the huge forty mile police escorted
ride that leaves at eleven am that morning, Saturday, you've
got the Police Canine Challenge where you see the police
and the handlers and their canines doing different different activities
and challenges and things like that, so really getting to
see them in action, which is really fun. We have
(03:33):
a Firefighter Chili Cookoff, so we have fired departments from
throughout the state that come and they you know, you
can go through and do the tasting. It's a great
fundraiser for those departments as well, so that's really fun.
And then we have car displays. They're there throughout the weekend.
We have a great dealer support, so you'll see great
cars throughout the weekend as well. And the highlight of
(03:56):
Saturday for our dream Riders is actually the Dream Cruise.
So people who have amazing cars or trucks or jeeps,
anything like that, they get a ticket, they register and
then they open the doors of their cars to our
Dream Riders and they go on a eighty mile cruise
to the Connecticut Valley, you know, beautiful picturesque ride, and
(04:18):
they come back to a red carpet entrance.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
There's a red carpet, there's a balloon arch, there's.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Stilt walker, there's people lining the entire carpet, taking pictures,
taking video, giving them gifts. We did friendship bracelets, so
that really caught on. So we've got people exchanging friendship
bracelets and they get a medal and then they walk
in to our big, gigantic tent. We're going to have
a very special surprise that we can't talk about, but
you definitely want to be there to see it. This year,
(04:44):
we have a special presentation on Saturday night that kind
of highlights some of the accomplishments of our dream Riders
and the Hometown Foundation from throughout the year.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And then more dancing. Two nights of dancing, two nights
of dancing, and you know, it was really really fun.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
How do people get involved with want to get into
the Chili cookoff or if they have someone who wants
to be a dream writer, go to the website.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yep, everything is at dreamride dot org. So across the
top there's a bar. If you're interested in participating in
the Dream Ride or the Dream Cruise, or showing your
car which is Sunday, getting your car judged. All of
the links are on that ticketing page. If you are
interested in if you have a child with special needs
(05:26):
and would like them to be a dream writer. You
can definitely go on and reach out through our website
as well through the contact us button and we will
get back to on that. But again this year, we're
expecting I think six hundred plus dream riders.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
We doubled our countries from last year that are coming through.
Dream Writers coming from nine different countries this year, I
think about forty states, so really like there are people
coming from all corners of the globe to enjoy this event.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So we're really excited.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
How do the parent feel of the dream writers? I
can just imagine the smile on their face.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's beautiful, honestly.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Getting to know them and their parents and watching them
be able to bond with each other and have another
person who understands the challenges that they face as parents
every day was really beautiful and they made friends, you know,
for life, and it was instantaneous. You saw these bonds
form between the dream writers, between the parents, the parents
(06:28):
kind of looking out for the other the other dream
writers while they were there sharing resources, you know, the
parents who were coming in from other countries, like talking about,
you know, how their insurance works or how how these
different resources are available. To them and it was really
you know, it was life changing for the dream writer,
but it was life changing for the parents too, just
(06:48):
because they've really like got to see their child go
in be so included into something, make so many new friends,
you know, not have any judgment at all in the
whole situation.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So it's really really a beautiful thing to.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
The Hometown Foundation ever dream it could become this big
and this amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
We dream really big there.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
So our CEO, Michael Bizudo, has the biggest heart in
the world and the biggest vision, so he always wants it.
He wants it bigger than it is now, so which
is great. So we're really excited. I did start, as
you know, just a very small motorcycle ride to raise
money for Special Olympics more than twenty years ago, and
(07:33):
so to see it go from that to what it
is today, this three day event that encompasses so many
different pieces and just really brings the community together and
it almost like feels like a gigantic backyard neighborhood party
because everybody is there for the same reason. They're all
there to support the dream Riders. They're there to support
(07:55):
the Hometown Foundation or the police or the fire departments,
or to share their passion for their cars or their motorcycles.
And to see people coming out to do this for
the goodness of the community as a whole is really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Where do you need people to get involved at this moment?
You need volunteers.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
We always love volunteers, and you know, the volunteers have
a great time.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Every year.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We have a lot of volunteers that come and they
come year after year and they love it because they
get to know the dream Riders as well. So you'll
see dream Riders and they'll message and they'll say, oh,
is this volunteer going to be there this year, or
you know, are they going to be back, Are they
going to help us run cornhole, or are they gonna
you know, do unified swimming again. So that part of
it is really fun. There are volunteer opportunities on our
(08:41):
website as well, so always looking for volunteers. Sponsorships obviously,
that's a big piece of what keeps us going. So
our sponsors and our donors are so generous and they
have supported us year after year, so we're really grateful
to them and always always welcoming more sponsors. We do
have a tea Raffle throughout the weekend, So donations to
(09:02):
our teacup raffle is they're always welcome as well.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I mean, there's there's just so many.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Ways to get involved if you have a passion for
something the you know, even outside of Dream Ride, the
Hometown Foundation does so much during the year within our communities,
so you'll definitely find something that we support that resonates
with you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And what is the Hometown Foundation's website so people could.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Look at it Hometown Foundation dot org.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Let's talk about Sunday.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yes, Oh, Sunday is all about the wheels. So we've
got we've got the largest Cause related car show on
the East Coast, so I mean easily over a thousand
cars on the field. And these are you know, we've
got you know, your regular car show cars, which are
great and people love looking at. But then we have
these super exotics we have. We do a lot of
(09:54):
reveals for different brands and things like that, so that's
really fun. People really enjoy seeing what's what's coming new
from these huge brands. You know, we have McLaren's coming
in huge this year. We have Pegani, Bugatti, things that
I've never heard of before. I work here as a
non car person totally understand. So it's really really cool
(10:16):
and to see that the way that again the community
comes together to support these drivers, in the way that
the car community comes out and they share these beautiful
pieces of art with us is you know, we appreciate
it so much. And then the motorcycles get to come
back and we can do a motor We have a
motorcycle display on Sunday as well, so really just you know,
(10:40):
people coming together looking at that the Sunday Car Show.
You have an option to do the Judge Dream Show
as well, so we have world class judges that come
in from all over the country.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You must hate for it to end on Sunday, but
but look forward to it happening again the year after.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
It is definitely a lot of work to get it
all together. Seeing the dream writers come in and how
much fun they're having and like having them come up
to us and share a friendship bracelet with us or
give us a hug, or pull us out onto the
dance floor to dance is really like means the world
to all of us and it makes all of the
work worth it. You know, they tell us they're like this,
(11:20):
you know this is the best day of my life.
Like I live all year for dream Ride.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
There's nothing better than knowing you're going to make somebody happy.
I'm speaking with Jen McCulla, assistant director of the Hometown Foundation.
If you'd like to know more about the Hometown Foundation
and what they do, go to Hometownfoundation dot org. We're
talking about the dream Ride experience. It's August twenty third
through the twenty fifth at the Farmington Polo Club. Go
to Dreamride dot org. Thank you so much for being
(11:47):
here and for serving the community and making people happy.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Thank you so much for letting us share about the event.
We appreciate it.
I'm Alison Demrz and you're listening to Community Access today.
I'm with Jen McCullough, assistant director of the Hometown Foundation.
Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
It's truly an amazing event that's coming up called the
Dream Ride Experience at the end of August.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It is August twenty third, twenty fourth, and twenty fifth.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Tell us what's it all about.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Wow, that's a hard question. There's a lot of stuff there,
a lot that happens.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
So the biggest thing to know about the Dream Right
Experience is it is in celebration of our dream writers,
and those are individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities or
those fighting a challenge in their lives, and we take
this weekend to really celebrate all that they overcome in
their everyday lives and just kind of cheer them on
(00:46):
and show them that they've got this whole entire community
behind them. And it's really great not only for that,
but they get to connect with each other, so really
building those relationships and then showing them that there's this
gigantic community out there that's dwelling to come together and
make this beautiful event for them that has so much
to do all weekend long. There's literally something for everybody.
(01:07):
If you can't find something to do or enjoy a
dream ride, then let us know and we'll add it
next year.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I don't think that's going to happen. Take us through
the days, how will they go about?
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
So we open Friday, August twenty third. The highlight that
night we have a polo match that happened. So the
Farmington Polo Club is our host site and they do
polo every Saturday May to October, and so that week
they moved to Friday night for us, and really fun
to come out and see the polo match. A lot
(01:41):
of people have never seen one before, so it's definitely
fun to check out. After the polo match, We've got
an amazing auction that's going to happen, so that's going
to be really fun. We're gonna do f one Miami
ticket so those are a big hot commodity.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Nice watching gifts, yeah, really fun.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Got a luxury kitchen makeover donated by s k Lavery,
so that's really exciting as well.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Who doesn't want brand new kitchen?
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Sure, you know, we might throw a car in there,
maybe a motorcycle. So it's just kind of how we
roll at the Hometown Foundation, so it's gonna be great.
And then we've got a great DJ and so there'll
be dancing on Friday night as well, which our dream
riders really love, so really fun to go and dance
the night away with them at the end of the evening.
(02:30):
In addition, obviously we've got food vendors, we've got some
a family fund zone with different entertainment for the kids.
We recently adopted a bunch of baby goats, so the
goats will be around, so they're definitely a great fun attraction.
And then that leads us into Saturday, and Saturday's gonna
look a little different than past years because we have
(02:52):
moved our Dream Ride the motorcycle portion to Saturday mornings,
so this is definitely a change from past years, but
really excited about it. We've got a lot of the
local Harley dealers on board, so they are going to
be satellite locations. And in addition, if a motorcyclist prefers
a police escorted ride, they can come to the Polo
(03:12):
Club and we'll have the huge forty mile police escorted
ride that leaves at eleven am that morning, Saturday, you've
got the Police Canine Challenge where you see the police
and the handlers and their canines doing different different activities
and challenges and things like that, so really getting to
see them in action, which is really fun. We have
(03:33):
a Firefighter Chili Cookoff, so we have fired departments from
throughout the state that come and they you know, you
can go through and do the tasting. It's a great
fundraiser for those departments as well, so that's really fun.
And then we have car displays. They're there throughout the weekend.
We have a great dealer support, so you'll see great
cars throughout the weekend as well. And the highlight of
(03:56):
Saturday for our dream Riders is actually the Dream Cruise.
So people who have amazing cars or trucks or jeeps,
anything like that, they get a ticket, they register and
then they open the doors of their cars to our
Dream Riders and they go on a eighty mile cruise
to the Connecticut Valley, you know, beautiful picturesque ride, and
(04:18):
they come back to a red carpet entrance.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
There's a red carpet, there's a balloon arch, there's.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Stilt walker, there's people lining the entire carpet, taking pictures,
taking video, giving them gifts. We did friendship bracelets, so
that really caught on. So we've got people exchanging friendship
bracelets and they get a medal and then they walk
in to our big, gigantic tent. We're going to have
a very special surprise that we can't talk about, but
you definitely want to be there to see it. This year,
(04:44):
we have a special presentation on Saturday night that kind
of highlights some of the accomplishments of our dream Riders
and the Hometown Foundation from throughout the year.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
And then more dancing. Two nights of dancing, two nights
of dancing, and you know, it was really really fun.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
How do people get involved with want to get into
the Chili cookoff or if they have someone who wants
to be a dream writer, go to the website.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yep, everything is at dreamride dot org. So across the
top there's a bar. If you're interested in participating in
the Dream Ride or the Dream Cruise, or showing your
car which is Sunday, getting your car judged. All of
the links are on that ticketing page. If you are
interested in if you have a child with special needs
(05:26):
and would like them to be a dream writer. You
can definitely go on and reach out through our website
as well through the contact us button and we will
get back to on that. But again this year, we're
expecting I think six hundred plus dream riders.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
We doubled our countries from last year that are coming through.
Dream Writers coming from nine different countries this year, I
think about forty states, so really like there are people
coming from all corners of the globe to enjoy this event.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
So we're really excited.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
How do the parent feel of the dream writers? I
can just imagine the smile on their face.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
It's beautiful, honestly.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Getting to know them and their parents and watching them
be able to bond with each other and have another
person who understands the challenges that they face as parents
every day was really beautiful and they made friends, you know,
for life, and it was instantaneous. You saw these bonds
form between the dream writers, between the parents, the parents
(06:28):
kind of looking out for the other the other dream
writers while they were there sharing resources, you know, the
parents who were coming in from other countries, like talking about,
you know, how their insurance works or how how these
different resources are available. To them and it was really
you know, it was life changing for the dream writer,
but it was life changing for the parents too, just
(06:48):
because they've really like got to see their child go
in be so included into something, make so many new friends,
you know, not have any judgment at all in the
whole situation.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
So it's really really a beautiful thing to.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
The Hometown Foundation ever dream it could become this big
and this amazing.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
We dream really big there.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
So our CEO, Michael Bizudo, has the biggest heart in
the world and the biggest vision, so he always wants it.
He wants it bigger than it is now, so which
is great. So we're really excited. I did start, as
you know, just a very small motorcycle ride to raise
money for Special Olympics more than twenty years ago, and
(07:33):
so to see it go from that to what it
is today, this three day event that encompasses so many
different pieces and just really brings the community together and
it almost like feels like a gigantic backyard neighborhood party
because everybody is there for the same reason. They're all
there to support the dream Riders. They're there to support
(07:55):
the Hometown Foundation or the police or the fire departments,
or to share their passion for their cars or their motorcycles.
And to see people coming out to do this for
the goodness of the community as a whole is really beautiful.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Where do you need people to get involved at this moment?
You need volunteers.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
We always love volunteers, and you know, the volunteers have
a great time.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Every year.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We have a lot of volunteers that come and they
come year after year and they love it because they
get to know the dream Riders as well. So you'll
see dream Riders and they'll message and they'll say, oh,
is this volunteer going to be there this year, or
you know, are they going to be back, Are they
going to help us run cornhole, or are they gonna
you know, do unified swimming again. So that part of
it is really fun. There are volunteer opportunities on our
(08:41):
website as well, so always looking for volunteers. Sponsorships obviously,
that's a big piece of what keeps us going. So
our sponsors and our donors are so generous and they
have supported us year after year, so we're really grateful
to them and always always welcoming more sponsors. We do
have a tea Raffle throughout the weekend, So donations to
(09:02):
our teacup raffle is they're always welcome as well.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I mean, there's there's just so many.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Ways to get involved if you have a passion for
something the you know, even outside of Dream Ride, the
Hometown Foundation does so much during the year within our communities,
so you'll definitely find something that we support that resonates
with you.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And what is the Hometown Foundation's website so people could.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Look at it Hometown Foundation dot org.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Let's talk about Sunday.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Yes, Oh, Sunday is all about the wheels. So we've
got we've got the largest Cause related car show on
the East Coast, so I mean easily over a thousand
cars on the field. And these are you know, we've
got you know, your regular car show cars, which are
great and people love looking at. But then we have
these super exotics we have. We do a lot of
(09:54):
reveals for different brands and things like that, so that's
really fun. People really enjoy seeing what's what's coming new
from these huge brands. You know, we have McLaren's coming
in huge this year. We have Pegani, Bugatti, things that
I've never heard of before. I work here as a
non car person totally understand. So it's really really cool
(10:16):
and to see that the way that again the community
comes together to support these drivers, in the way that
the car community comes out and they share these beautiful
pieces of art with us is you know, we appreciate
it so much. And then the motorcycles get to come
back and we can do a motor We have a
motorcycle display on Sunday as well, so really just you know,
(10:40):
people coming together looking at that the Sunday Car Show.
You have an option to do the Judge Dream Show
as well, so we have world class judges that come
in from all over the country.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
You must hate for it to end on Sunday, but
but look forward to it happening again the year after.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
It is definitely a lot of work to get it
all together. Seeing the dream writers come in and how
much fun they're having and like having them come up
to us and share a friendship bracelet with us or
give us a hug, or pull us out onto the
dance floor to dance is really like means the world
to all of us and it makes all of the
work worth it. You know, they tell us they're like this,
(11:20):
you know this is the best day of my life.
Like I live all year for dream Ride.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
There's nothing better than knowing you're going to make somebody happy.
I'm speaking with Jen McCulla, assistant director of the Hometown Foundation.
If you'd like to know more about the Hometown Foundation
and what they do, go to Hometownfoundation dot org. We're
talking about the dream Ride experience. It's August twenty third
through the twenty fifth at the Farmington Polo Club. Go
to Dreamride dot org. Thank you so much for being
(11:47):
here and for serving the community and making people happy.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Thank you so much for letting us share about the event.
We appreciate it.
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