Episode 1029 – Jason Grand Haven Jeep Fest

Jason Rogers

Jason founded the Grand Haven Jeep Fest in Grand Haven, Michigan just 3 years ago as a way to bring his love of Jeeps together with the desire to help his local community. He has seen the event exponentially grow each and every year drawing more and more attendees, more vendors and for the first time this year, a man made obstacle course in the heart of the downtown area. He has visitors from as far away as Florida or North Dakota and other areas all over the Midwest.

 

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I’m sorry.

 

From around the world or from your city and sometimes just down the street. How’d a neighbor. It’s the Jeep Talk Show interview. Hi, boys and girls, it’s time for the Jeep Talk Show interview. I didn’t even say those words. I just kind of tripped through that. It’s time for another Jeep Talk Show interview. You ever mumble through things? Jason, I just, I used to, when I first got married, my wife kept telling me you’re mumbling. You’re not talking very loud. And I don’t know about you, but like if you’re in the grocery store and if you speak at normal volume like you, who wants somebody to get that diagonal basket out of the aisle, you say, “Excuse me.” I was like, “Excuse me.” And then they would just jump.

 

Think of this as being on the road, people. Just the same rule for the store, apply on the road. Don’t park diagonally and stay in your damn lane. But anyway, but I digress. Jason founded the Grand Haven Jeep Fest in Grand Haven, Michigan just three years ago.

 

It’s a way to bring his love of Jeeps together with a desire to help his local community. He has seen the event exponentially grow each and every year, drawing more and more attendees, more vendors. And for the first time this year, a man made obstacle course, oh, that’s going to be fun, in the heart of the downtown area. I told the Toledo Jeep people that they need to make, not fill the potholes out in front of the thing and make it obstacle course. Talk to Jeep about making a trail badge. One of those honor badges for the parade.

 

He has visitors from as far away as Florida or North Dakota and other areas all over the Midwest. Wow, what a big deal. I mean, three years and doing all this. So you must be putting a lot of time into this thing. Oh, and I’m sorry, real quick, I have a tendency to do this. I want to make sure you guys can go and look at this site right now to get more information while you’re listening to this interview. That’s GHGepfest.com. So Grand Haven, the G for Grand, the H for Haven, GHGepfest.com. Jason, thank you very much.

 

Yeah, absolutely. Glad to be a part of it today. Thanks for having me. So now I understand wanting to do something, get people together and do something Jeep related, but what was the thing that made you want to do this?

 

Well, going to different Jeep events around the country has always been like a pretty big family affair for my family.

 

We visited places from Moab to we go to Jeep Beach every year in Daytona. We go to Myrtle Beach, Jeep Jam and various other events. And every time we go to them, we have a good time as a family.

 

The more we researched into these different events, we’re like, not only is this really fun for all the people that are coming here, we’re hanging out with people of common interests, but all those different events turn around and do something positive for the community they’re a part of. And both my wife and I are business owners in our small community. And we thought, well, how can we do this? How can we give back? Because we love the community we’re a part of. We live in it. We work in it. And if you’ve never been to Grand Haven, Michigan, it’s a beautiful beach town right on Lake Michigan. And it’s about two and a half hours north of Chicago.

 

And the sunsets here are amazing. We have white sandy beaches. And so it just kind of lends itself to being a destination for people to come. And especially when it’s nice outside in the spring and have the top off their Jeep and hang out in a beautiful location. So this is, I’m a native Texan. I’ve been in Texas all my life. I’ve traveled around. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Michigan. We’ve got several team members and some very aggressive. I don’t mean aggressive in a bad way. They’re listeners, but they’re very involved in the show. And Michigan seems to be a really interesting area that I’ve never known much about. And one of the things which has nothing to do with jeeping, at least not directly, is I found out that you guys have lake effect snow. And I thought that was wild. I had no idea until just maybe 10 or 15 years ago. It doesn’t affect me. So why would I know about it? But that’s going to be really interesting. And this has to be a factor in when you have these events that you can’t just have it any time. Yeah. For sure. For sure. It’s that when you’re a native to Michigan, you recognize that you have a window of time where we can do a lot of these fun things. And unless you’re somebody that loves snowmobiling, which people in Michigan, people that love that too. I mean, snow. I mean, we saw some snow going, my wife and I saw some snow. We’re both from Texas long term. And just seeing some snow was like, wow, 12 year old little girl’s going, yeah, it can be interesting. And if you’re not used to it, we always joke around here that the first time it snows,

 

you’ll get these, the car accidents, everybody slides off the road. And we say to each other, it does this every year, right? It just happened a few months ago. You don’t have to relearn how to drive.

 

But we also are unique in the amount of water that we have. Like we’re not a coastal state, right? We’re not Florida, we’re not Georgia, we’re not South Carolina, California that have oceans, but people will call Michigan, you know, third coast because we’re surrounded by water. It’s huge. It’s a huge life, yeah.

 

Yeah. Yeah. And it feels like there were people that visit here that have even come to Jeep Fest and they park at the end of the road because where the event takes place is on the channel that leads out to Lake Michigan.

 

And when the sun sets out there and you’re looking at water, as far as the eye can see, people that have never seen the ocean, they’re like, is this what the ocean is like? And then they feel that way. So we try to capitalize on that because we love the water, we love the beach, but we only get to use it for maybe four or five months a year, as opposed to like a Florida or a California that gets to use it. Does it actually freeze over? Does the lake actually freeze?

 

It can. I think it was like a few years back when we had probably a string of a few weeks in December into January where we had subzero temperatures, which is not normal.

 

Typically, the water actually heats us up because the water stays warmer. Same thing here, the Gulf of Mexico, I’m very close to Houston, so we have the same thing. That’s why we never get any damn snow, damn Gulf of Mexico.

 

Well, you can have it. I’m not somebody that loves the snow, so keep on it. Like I said, I saw it recently. We saw it in New Mexico traveling to EJS and then up on Shafer’s Trail, we got some snow. Nothing really, well, it kind of stuck, but nothing heavy.

 

But if you’re not used to snow, anything that’s white and fluffy is amazing.

 

The last time I saw snow here was 1974.

 

We had five inches of snow on the ground. Yeah, yeah. That was a big deal. You can well imagine that snow makes a big deal to me. Everybody always says, “Yeah, you can have it. You can have it.” Yeah, I wasn’t trying to go to work or anything like that. It’s fun. You just see it and it’s beautiful.

 

Yeah, we’ll take it. It’s fun to play in it for a little bit.

 

You do get some trails up here that when they get covered in snow, they’re fun to run those trails. It’s a trail, but it’s different. It’s like running at night. It makes the trail different.

 

Yep, it does. Most of our trails up here, we don’t have mountains or anything. If you go up into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, you can get some pretty extreme stuff that people really like. But if you’re in the Lower Peninsula where we are, the trails aren’t that extreme. You get some nice wooded areas, but in the spring, they turn to mud holes from everything melting. So if you can get out there when there’s 12 inches of snow, it is fun. That’s for sure. So you have a limited time to do this. Do you have a problem with events and timing your event when to have it? Do you butt up against people because of this, because of the limited window that you have?

 

Yeah, it’s interesting. During the month of May in Michigan, probably within an hour to an hour and a half of where we’re located, we have three pretty significantly sized Jeep events.

 

And they all fall in that timeframe because everybody’s waiting for it to get nice.

 

But then once it gets really nice, everybody’d rather be on a boat or at the beach. Oh, I got you. That makes sense.

 

Yeah, we get three of them within about five weeks of each other.

 

There’s one a couple weeks before us, and then there’s one a couple weeks after us. And we’re all on the west side of Michigan.

 

But yeah, when we first started planning this, we’re like, what timeframe can it fit into? It’s like, well, we don’t want to step on these guys toes, but we also don’t want to take people away from here. But we’ve even had some companies that have come to us and people that kind of use their spring and summer to kind of travel around and do these different Jeep events. They love that our three are all within those few weeks because they can hit Michigan and hit three major events before they kind of move on to the next area. That is neat.

 

It’s funny, I was watching a video earlier today where they were talking about things in the US that you may not know. And they were talking about how part of the US is actually more northern than Canada. And I mean, because literally Canada wraps around below the state of Michigan. So do you guys consider yourself honorary Canadians since you’re so far north?

 

If you’re in the UP, you do. It’s funny because with Michigan having its… it’s kind of a unique state that it has these two parts that are connected. Yeah, that was the other thing they mentioned.

 

You have to drive over the Mackinac Bridge to get to the Upper Peninsula and they’re almost two vastly different areas and people that are in the Upper Peninsula, they do. They even talk like they’re from Canada.

 

In the Upper Peninsula, the mitten portion of the state, yeah, we firmly claim our Michigan heritage. I always give the Canadian interviewees and listeners, do you guys always say there’s a moose in my hoose? So yeah, I can well imagine. I love Canadians. They’re just like us, only culture.

 

Maybe I should say that about people in Michigan too.

 

That’s really cool. Okay, so we’ve developed the understanding of it’s kind of hard to pick a good day.

 

This is your third year.

 

Did you have any problems in the first two years with people saying I couldn’t come because of this event or that other? Or were you lucky all three years or have been lucky the two years?

 

I think it was getting people to wrap their head around why they would come to a small town for this event because Grand Haven is not a big city.

 

We’re one of the most beloved beach cities in Michigan for sure.

 

Every year we get ranked like in the top 10 beach towns in the United States, things like that because our beaches are amazing.

 

But we’re a very small town. Our downtown maybe is four or five blocks. That’s so cool. I love little towns in Texas. And I imagine that’s just the same thing up there where you guys are. Let me ask you real quick. Can you see Milwaukee from the beach? That looks like a long way. And I don’t think you’d be able to see it.

 

No, it looks like the water just goes forever. So it does. It does very much look like an ocean. It’s really cool.

 

And yeah, so for a lot of people, it was, well, why am I going to come to a small town? And that was hard the first year. But it gained so much traction so fast and got a lot of good feedback that even like some of our smaller vendors were going back to maybe who they were suppliers for, like some of the bigger, you know, when you hear about people like Nettlecloak and, and Moto Bill, you know, those are recognizable names, Alpine, and our smaller vendors who are dealers for them were going back to them and saying, no, this may seem like it’s in a small town, but there are thousands of people. Well, I mean, this where you’re located with this, I mean, you’re close to Grand Rapids. How far is Detroit from you guys? If it driving time?

 

Okay, so relatively close. Lansing being a lot closer. I guess anybody coming from Milwaukee would have a really roundabout deal or there’s no bridges, right?

 

There is a ferry that goes across Lake Michigan. Oh, how big is it? We have like the Bolivar Ferry down here and it carries a large number of vehicles.

 

Yeah, it’ll carry several hundred vehicles and it gets you from Milwaukee to Muskegon, which is only about 15 miles north of us in Grand Haven. It makes that ride about three hours. So I’m looking at Google maps here. That’s the reason why I’m not a maps of aunts location of aunts. So I’m looking at this now. I got to ask. So I know how towns are even communities can be as far as fighting with each other. You guys are Grand Haven. I see South Haven is a little south of you. Of course, do you guys pick on South Haven? You know, cause we’re the Grand Haven and you’re just that South Haven.

 

You know, it’s interesting. I’m not native to Grand Haven. I actually grew up north of Detroit. And my wife has lived her whole life here in Grand Haven and it is the people that have spent their whole life here. They definitely feel, you know, that there’s a lot of things that floated in here in the eighties for a job. I’ve lived here all my life and there’s a big deal between a Texan and not a native Texan. And I’ll just tell you, if you’re from Dallas, if you grew up in Dallas, born in Dallas, lived in Dallas all your life, you’re not a Texan.

 

You have to be south of Dallas to be a Texan. Doesn’t count. I’m not pissing Dallas people up.

 

All right. Well this is really cool. And this has to be, so where would you say the majority of people, and I don’t guess you guys do any kind of marketing questionnaire or anything, but do you have a feel for what the majority of people, where they come from? Are they local? Are they out of state? And if they’re local, what part of Michigan or Indiana or wherever they come from?

 

I mean, when people do register for our event, they do put down their address because we mail out all their materials.

 

I would say probably 50% of it is people already in Michigan. We have a big contingency, a big percentage that we see from like that Detroit area, Lansing area, and probably mostly because that is so, that side of the state having grown up there, there is not water over there. It’s not a super pretty area. It’s more of an industrialized area. It’s lots of, so that’s what it’s for. So to come over here is more picturesque. We also see a ton of people from like the Chicago area, Northern Indiana, same thing. They’re coming from these areas that are so densely populated.

 

And for them to be able to get to a Jeep event that has all these different vendors and all these different, encompassing where they can also hang out at a beachy town and all that kind of stuff, it’s kind of unique that way. They can bring their family and they can walk down Main Street, walk to the beach, they can go out to the lighthouse.

 

Maybe the people that are really into the Jeep stuff can go watch the obstacle course and hang out at those places. And it’s all within walking. So that’s kind of the neat thing about a small town.

 

So if somebody was coming in and they wanted to stay overnight, are there hotels and things they can stay at? I mean, I guess there’s the surrounding Grand Rapids, Lansing, I’m sure there’d be places there, but are there places in Grand Haven?

 

We actually encourage a lot of people to stay at like the Airbnb’s because we, because people only visit here for like a few months out of the year, big motel chains don’t stay here because they can’t survive not having income for nine months.

 

Grand Rapids is maybe 40 minutes from here. That would be the biggest as far as like big hotels, but we’ve got a lot of good feedback from people that are like, I can’t believe I was able to rent a condo on the beach and it was cheaper than, you know, staying at the double tree suites. It’s like, yeah, you can get that here. Especially our event takes place before Memorial Day after Memorial Day in Grand Haven. It’s like chaos, you know, every weekend is booked up. The fact that we’re a couple of weeks before all those places are still available now this year, not so much people started booking to come to this event probably like six months ago. So it’s definitely so I don’t know if you mentioned it or not. I have, I haven’t mentioned it. I’m going to mention it now. So the event is Saturday, May 18th, 2024. So coming up really, really quickly, we were just discussing before we started recording here that this, this interview episode for you will be out like the first week of May. So if you’re hearing this, you still have time to go to this. And would you say the best thing to do is to go to GHG Fest.com and register? And I mean, we’re, we’re not on the, we’re not a week away from the event. So how are registrations? Are they limited the number of registrations? Do people still have time to get in on this?

 

Different registration levels. Um, two, we have three different levels. One of them is if you want to use our obstacle course, that one already sold out. When we offered that for the first time this year, they went so fast. People couldn’t believe that they were going to drive on an obstacle course in downtown Grand Haven. They just, they’re like, how’s that going to happen? So it’ll be interesting. And then we have a level of registration that includes parking all through the main street of our downtown. Like everybody lines them up on the, on the street. Those sold out super fast. And so, uh, event there for everybody you guys included.

 

Yeah. Yeah. It’s really cool when you can stand four blocks back and just see hundreds of Jeeps all lined up along, you know, in front of all these like kind of historical buildings and stuff and the clothes down and the kids are having fun. It’s great. Um, we usually will close our registration down right around the first of May, because we just need time to produce everything that we give to people who register. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t come. Um, it just means that maybe you’re not going to get our T-shirt for the year, our giveaways for the year, but we, you know, you can still like, we, we tell people all the time, the event is open. Okay, good. So there’s not limited here. So you can come the day of the event and, and, and, and you, if you, if you don’t register, do you still have to pay to get into the event and how would you go about doing that? If so.

 

So the registration is more like we, we tell people like we need people to register to support putting on an event. It costs a lot of money to put an event on.

 

So that, you know, goes towards that also we’re a charitable organization. Everything, all the proceeds of this get turned around and given to, uh, you know, someone back in the community. So if we made the whole thing free, not only would there not be an event, but we couldn’t, um, you know, support one of those organizations, but, um, no, you can still come and, you know, visit all the vendors, check out all the Jeeps, watch the people at the obstacle course. You just may not be able to drive on it because you weren’t able to register ahead of time and, and some of those things. But yeah, we have, we, uh, our rotary club gives away a brand new Jeep every year at our event. Um, people can buy a raffle ticket for that. And in the middle of the day down at the, at our waterfront, somebody gets a brand new Jeep every year. Very nice. Uh, so, uh, you guys may be listening to this on may the third, uh, which is a Friday that gives you, uh, uh, over two weeks, uh, uh, two weeks, 14, 16, 70 days. Um, do you think that, uh, this is going to be worth traveling to? Uh, they’re just finding out about it. They go, wow, this is great. I didn’t know about it. Let’s head over there. Dear, let’s grab the kids. Let’s shove them in the Jeep and go over there. Uh, that’s still a viable option.

 

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, um, where we’re, where we’re located, where the event takes place downtown in the surrounding streets and probably within eight to 10 blocks, there are tons of public parking areas because in the summertime, this, the capacity of this city like goes times 10, the amount of the influx of people just to be here in the summertime. So the, the, the area is there for you to, to park and get access to it. May have to walk a few blocks. Well, don’t forget your foot, you know, don’t be walking around and going, I damn, I forgot my Fitbit. I hear this all the time for my wife.

 

Right.

 

So, uh, I mean, I don’t want to beat up on this, this, uh, this, uh, aspect of it. But we’re, but as far as places to eat, I get the feeling that if a hotel chains don’t come in there, you probably don’t have a food chains in there. What, where’s, where are good places to eat while you’re staying there? I’m hoping there’s some, some really mom and pop type places holding a wall type places.

 

Yeah. There’s one of the other things Michigan is known for is distilleries and breweries for sure. And we may be a small town, but we have, um, we have a couple of really good distilleries that are right in the main drag of where the event takes place. We even have one that, um, is a nationally renowned distillery, wise men distillery, um, out of grand rapids. They, they win awards every year at different events. They’re going to be right down at the waterfront stadium where it kind of everything happens that you’ll be able to, we have two big breweries right downtown grand Haven that, you know, can house hundreds of people. And then we’ll have four or five different local food trucks that’ll be down at the event to eat a nightmare to put together. And then, and then you add on, uh, making an obstacle course, uh, which by the way, I’m sure you are obligated to take down and clean up after it’s all over and done with, so this is, this is really a, um, uh, love for doing this because this is a lot of work for you and your team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve had, I’ve had people ask, you know, say to me that our sponsors of the event or things they’re like, so this is your full-time job. I’m like, no, I wish. Yeah.

 

Well, the contractor, I build houses. So, I mean, that’s, that’s my full-time job. You just mentioned, you just mentioned sponsors. Do you, do you mind sharing with us who your sponsors are this year?

 

I’m sorry. I didn’t, I didn’t clear you in on that, but, uh, it’s always good to plug, uh, plug the event with some names. It is now I’m going to struggle to remember who every single one is, um, without finding my sheet that it’s, wait, I do have it right here. What do you know? What do you know? Here it is. Um, so yeah, we have several sponsors this year. I mean, our, our biggest ones that, that have really stepped up. Um, we mentioned wise men distillery who’s going to be right downtown. Are they providing the winner a cake or something? If they’re doing a giveaway where they just rolled the keg in the back of the Jeep, you can sample all their amazing create, um, down there. And then, uh, the other one who really stepped up this year, we have green Ridge realty, who’s the local, one of the local real estate companies. And, uh, one of their realtors has supported us from the very beginning. Uh, she’s a, uh, Lori key back is a, is a great, uh, member of the community supports the community and she’s a huge member of the jeeping community. Um, so she was instrumental in getting them involved. Um, Ottergon plumbing, big local plumbing company, Tri-Cities credit union, uh, Grand Haven beach company, uh, Padnos recycling, Glix, uh, preferred Chrysler job, Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram, our local, uh, Jeep dealership, um, off the record. And then four by four is, which is one of the big local, um, uh, Jeep shops here. Uh, they’re based out of spring Lake, but rich has been a huge supporter of the event from the very beginning. Um, he actually has, uh, created our flex ramp area this year where everybody will be able to get on the RTI ramp and, and stretch things out. We’ll have an award for, you know, best scores on that as well. But rich sponsors are after party. Um, he’s just a, yeah, great guy. So, I mean, it’s, it’s awesome that we have local people in our community that are also members of the off-road community and they want to see this event grow. And they see what we give back. Um, and they just want to be a part of that. So it’s, it’s been really awesome. So you mentioned the plumbing company, right? Was, I don’t think I’m gonna pronounce this right. I want to say Octagon, but I don’t think it’s Octagon. I click in. I can.

 

I’d have gone. So they are shamelessly plugging their logo with a rubber duck with a, with a yellow rubber duck. That was their before they got involved. Yeah.

 

I mean, I scrolled down far enough and you guys can see this too. If you go to GH Jeep, fest.com, a grand Haven, Jeep, fest.com. So the G for grand, the H for a Haven, GH Jeep fest.com. Uh, I see on here, uh, all I had to do is scroll down far enough and I can see these things. So, uh, rugged radios, uh, Steinjager metal cloak, uh, CMM off-road, uh, motor built, uh, and, uh, a grand beach, uh, co co company, haven grand haven beach company, and, uh, yeah, you got, uh, you got quite a few sponsors here. So was this a hard sell? Uh, and I’m not asking for any troubled individuals that gave you a hard time, but was this a hard sell, uh, especially on, on year one, was it hard to get sponsors?

 

Yeah. Year one was, was, was hard. The hell are you? You got a G so what?

 

Yeah, exactly. I should give you any money. Um, it was helpful that, um, the, the beneficiary, the first year, um, was, uh, Kenzie’s B cafe, which is a local, uh, coffee shop that was getting started that year here in town and they employ people with disabilities. Oh, that’s wonderful. Which is being, um, Erin, Erin Lyon, the founder of them is amazing, but her, her background is, is in fundraising. And so when she knew I wanted to do this and I wanted to help her and we kind of partnered up, I am forever grateful for that because she has really showed us. How to raise money and how people to take notice of your event, um, to go from, you know, having a hundred or so people register your first year and maybe, you know, seven or 800 people show up to this year, having 400 plus Jeeps registered and thousands of people attending in a matter of a few years. I wouldn’t have been able to do that on my own because I’m just, that’s just not the kind of person I am to go out and ask for money and do it. It’s hard, the marketing aspect alone. And, uh, I mean, you may do some sales in your, in your company as far as dealing with customers and stuff, but sales is very difficult. Uh, it’s worse than going to a dance and asking every, every girl to, uh, go to dance with you and get them all laughing at you. Right.

 

And I would, I wouldn’t be remiss if I didn’t mention that my wife is a, is a photographer, a very successful photographer in this area and does a lot of weddings and things like that. But she is very social media savvy and very computer savvy. Like she built our website and a lot of the photos that you see on our website or things that you see on our social media are stuff that she has done. And I know nothing about that at all. And in this day and age, if you’re not involved in Instagram and Facebook and all those types of things, people don’t know about you because it’s print media or any of that stuff. So she’s been instrumental in making it kind of hit all these different places. And, you know, we’re seeing people that didn’t know about us that like, oh, I saw this on Facebook because you shared it to here and here and here. And that’s, that’s really made it kind of. Word of mouth. And also too, I’m sure you have a lot of people that have been to the events that are sharing pictures and they, they get asked or hopefully they, they put it in their social media post what the event was and that all helps. So I just want to mention you guys are a 501c3 organization.

 

And we have not mentioned, and I think this is true, correct me if it’s wrong, but you guys have a different beneficiary every year. Uh, and, and so this year, who is your beneficiary for the, the proceeds?

 

This year, the proceeds all go to the children’s advocacy center of Ottawa County, um, Grand Haven is in Ottawa County in Michigan and the children’s advocacy center, um, does anything and everything to support children and families who are victims of sexual abuse. It’s something that we don’t like to talk about. It’s something that, you know, we rather wouldn’t discuss because it’s unsavory. But the sad thing is it happens, uh, to young people and, and, and they have to deal with the, you know, the, you know, what, how they react to that. And then they have a family that doesn’t know how to help this child anymore. And the children’s advocacy center provides all these services, absolutely free to these children and these families, not just for a week or for a month, but for a lifetime. Um, so as these people, these children transition to adulthood or maybe have families of their own and still need help with dealing, uh, with all the bad things that come from that, this group is there for them forever. Um, and then they work to do prevention with all of our local schools and helping kids how to learn to, uh, to say no to some of those things and be on guard to some of those things and preventatively as well. That’s wonderful. That sounds like a great group to be, uh, be helping out, uh, because things like that can ruin a child’s life, uh, completely, uh, their entire life. So, uh, it’s, it’s very important for that to happen.

 

Well, I’m really happy to hear that this is a lifetime thing because those type of things can, uh, can mess you up for life. And, and actually, I don’t know if people realize this or not, of course, they watch TV, they’ve seen SVU. So they understand that things like this can even, uh, cause crime because of, uh, people not being able to handle their emotions and everything else that come from, from these, uh, sexual attacks. And, uh, so they, this is very important, uh, that we not only put perpetrators in jail, but maybe do something to them so they don’t become perpetrators.

 

Correct. Correct. Yeah. Um, we have a friend of ours who works on the local police department here in Grand Haven and in speaking to him, uh, you know, getting ideas for, for places that we could help and who really needed it, it was something he even brought up as well, because as you mentioned, you know, We get the bad guy and we put them in jail and then we kind of forget about everything that happens after that. We want the bad guy to go to the jail, but we have all these innocent people who really need help. And they need help long time. So that was important to us. And that’s a, I mean, to me, I hate that anything bad happens to kids. Uh, I’ll tell my wife, especially if it’s a, a baby or an infant, if something bad has happened to them, uh, and I mean, anything injured, surgeries, whatever. Uh, it’s hard for me to listen to. I’m a, I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to, uh, children being, uh, injured or abused. And, uh, to me, this is a great thing that you’re doing, but also too, it would it’s almost like, uh, going off road for some people. I, it’s not anything I even want to know about. I want to live in a brightly well, well colored world that nothing bad happens. So kudos to you guys for taking this on and, and, uh, being a part of it. Yeah.

 

Yeah. It makes us feel good. And we have found that most people.

 

By and large that are members of the Jeep community, they do, they want to help their community. They want to help people out. And as you mentioned, like, we don’t want anything bad to happen to innocent kids, but when it does, we want to stand up and help them. And this was our opportunity to do that. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, let’s get off of that. Uh, that though very, uh, it’s a, it’s a great subject, but it’s, it’s a downer. So let’s talk about something that’s fun. Tell us about the obstacle course that you’re going to be having in there. Uh, what would people expect? And I don’t think I see anything like this on your site, but this is the first year, so you probably don’t have any pictures of it yet. Yeah. We don’t have any pictures of it. Um, because it’s the first year I, in fact, when I, um, first had the idea of doing it, I firmly expected the city to tell me, well, not only no, but hell no. Right.

 

And ironically, that is pretty much what I got the first time I asked about it. But no, it’s good. I know there’s, there’s a Southern Texas accent for that there, but like, you want to do what to our street.

 

And, and we had, um, the, the, the lady who coordinates all events, who works with us and setting this up and kind of the liaison between us and the city, uh, her name is Dana and Dana just went to the city and said, but you can’t tell him no and not give him a reason. Exactly.

 

And, um, after she put that to them, they said, well, then I guess there really is a no reason we have made him think about it. Yeah.

 

No law that says you can’t do it. Um, and so yeah, we, we partnered with, um, a local landscaping company here, Mike Rose landscaping, and Mike is a lifelong, uh, Grand Havenite. Um, and, and kind of same thing. He wanted to be involved in it when he saw what we were about and who we were giving back to, but he’s also an off-roader. His kid is a, you know, a G-burg and he’s like, man, the fact that you’re bringing this into my little town that we’re going to build like these, you know, obstacles for people to crawl over, whether it’s like down trees and balancing boards and big, you know, massive piles of dirt and concrete and, you know, building like things that we’re going to scratch our diffs on as we like tried to see how it’s going to be an evolving process. I’ve told people that because nothing like this has been done before. Right. We’re not going out into the woods and using what nature has already put in place. We’re, we’re trying to make this in a matter of a couple of days that we can bring a ton of Jeeps into use and then have to tear it all back down and clean it up and make it look like it never happened. Exactly. So you know, this, I’m sure you’re a Jeep. Or you know this, that only about 5% of Jeep owners ever go off road.

 

So you are literally going to be having an event for some of these people that have gone off road for the first time. And I would actually, I would build it like this is a great on road, off road course, you know, so many people, yeah, they buy a Jeep because it looks cool or they like, they can take the top off and that’s great. That’s great. All those things, but they’re made to do so much more. But as I’m sure you’ve seen it is that there’s a nervousness that comes with that. They’re like, well, I know it can do it, but maybe it’s me who can’t do it. Oh yeah.

 

So I think it’s really cool that people are going to be able to kind of test it out. They’re not going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere. If something breaks, if they’re too scared, they can bypass it and avoid that. You know, whereas if you’re out on a trail, there’s not always a bypass. There’s a tree there and you can’t go around. So you, you have to do this. And so to be able to do it with the support of other people there with you, other volunteers working on that course, being a spotter for you, because maybe you and your friend want to go off roading, but you neither of you have ever been. So who do you trust to be the spotter? And well, now you’re going to meet people here doing that for you and watching you. And there’s more security. There’s more of a feeling of security that gives them a chance. And I suspect that you’re going to, and you’ll probably never know this unless they tell you about it later, this is going to encourage them to actually take their Jeeps off road because my God, it was so simple. I didn’t flip over. I didn’t, you know, you see all the, the, the things on YouTube where people just flip over. I didn’t flip over. It was fine. I mean, you can well imagine that if you, if we could travel in time and you got somebody that was on the covered wagon and then you brought them the future and showed them the vehicles and you, the, you would be driving at a hundred mile closure rate on a two lane road, head to head, that would scare the hell out of people. So, but, but you get used to this, you get used to driving in your vehicles. You get used to it when you’re a kid and your parents are driving. It’s no different off road. Uh, it just, it’s just different knowledge that you need.

 

And that’s what we really hope. We hope that people get a chance to experience it and say, man, this is fun. We hope they join an off road club, whether it’s here or where they live back home and do it more, um, you know, get out there and, and, you know, make memories doing those things. I mean, when I took my kids to Moab a few years ago and you know, this is a generation of kids that is on a phone is on an iPad, you know, this or that. Yeah. I know Moab. I’ve seen it on the phone. It looks all right.

 

Right. And they got out there and it was so awesome. See, you cannot experience it on a phone or a picture. I don’t care who you are, what you are. You have to see it in person. It’s so much bigger than you are. Right. Yeah. And, and you have a vehicle that can take you and do that, you know, so, so learn how to use it, get comfortable with it and let it take you places that you couldn’t in a mini. I mean, I say it all the time. Having a Jeep or any, really any off-road vehicle that’s truly an off-road vehicle is like having superpowers because you could do something that so many people can’t do. And if, if you learn how to take the vehicle off-road and you have that confidence and that sense of adventure, uh, it’s even more so. And I also like to mention it, and it really just depends. I mean, it could be snow. It could be earthquake. It could be, uh, hurricanes down here where we have it is the Jeep can save your life if you learn how to take it off-road because getting over telephone poles and, uh, ground that has broken up into shelves during a earthquake. All this stuff might enable you to save not only your life, but your families that’s in that Jeep with you. So learn how to use the tool that you have and don’t worry if it’s an $80,000 tool and you’re getting ready to flip it over, you probably won’t. And no tool is great. Just sitting on the shelf. I say, Oh, as a, as a carpenter, sometimes, you know, I have to break down and buy these really expensive tools. And the first time you make a cut with it, it’s like little nerve-wracking, but it makes your job so much easier and more enjoyable. Same true with your feet. So, uh, we kind of glossed over and that’s my fault. We kind of glossed over the, the, the Jeep giveaway. Tell us more about the Jeep giveaway. How do you get registered? Do you have to be a registered, uh, a person go into this thing or, or can you come in the day one and still get in on the giveaway?

 

Oh yeah. So the, the, the rotary club of Grand Haven is who gives away the Jeep. And they partnered with us when we founded Jeep Fest three years ago. And because when they were, they were giving away a vehicle every year, they always did a drawing every year and gave away a vehicle, which was really cool.

 

And they were selling like three and 400 raffle tickets for this thing. And when they partnered with us, that number went up exponentially. Like all of a sudden they were selling close to a thousand tickets. So it raised their ability to raise money at the same time. You know, you buy a lotto ticket, you got a one in what, I don’t know how many millions and millions and millions of chances of winning, they app their ticket sales at a thousand tickets.

 

So if you buy one ticket, oh, you got a one ticket. One in thousand chance of driving home a brand new Jeep. They’re, they are a hundred dollars to buy a raffle ticket, but I always tell people, I look at it as, yeah, but you’re given, even if you don’t win, you just gave a hundred bucks to somebody who really needed it. So, and, and any more, you know, you go out to dinner, it’s a hundred bucks. So if, you know, take that chance. And so you can go to the, um, Rotary of Grand Haven’s website or their Facebook page, and there’s a link there. There’s a link on our Facebook page, um, to buy them as well. And if there are tickets left, you can buy them at Jeep Fest. Uh, there’ll be members of the Rotary walking around selling them and the Jeep itself that you can win will be parked right down at waterfront stadium. You’ll be able to go down, see it. And at one o’clock the day of Jeep Fest, we make the announcement. They draw the name and that person, um, last year there was so much.

 

Buildup around it that people were buying tickets who couldn’t even make it to Jeep Fest, but they’re like, man, for a hundred bucks, I’ll take a shot. And a guy that won it was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin last year. And you answered another question. Cause so you do not have to be present to enter. Uh, it is a, and I’m just looking at the, uh, the, the site that you told me about the Rotary club of Grand Haven. Uh, it’s a, uh, the, the Grand Haven Rotary club is selling raffle tickets to win a 2024 Jeep Wrangler sport two door. All proceeds from the raffle, uh, are split in the following way. 75% Tri-Cities YMCA, all of YMCA is great. Uh, and then 25%, uh, international water projects in Honduras. Uh, and this is your chance to win a fun new Jeep Wrangler for summer and support your local charities and international clean water projects. And I’m going to correct you, Jason. The tickets are not a hundred dollars. They’re a hundred and 103 dollars. Oh, okay. So, so order now prices are going up.

 

Yeah, that’s grand haven, uh, rotary.org where you can see that it’s right there on the front page, it says Jeep raffle up at the top so you can click on that. Well, that’s cool. And then, and you might want to get in on this quickly because it’s a thousand and only 1000 tickets are coming out of this. So, so that’s great. So they must be working a deal with the local vendor or some Jeep, uh, yeah, seller for this. Yeah. Preferred preferred, uh, Jeep, uh, our local, uh, Jeep dealership, who’s a sponsor this year for us as well, they partner with them and they’re able to, you know, buy the Jeep, you know, at cost, um, which is something nice that the dealership, you know, helps them to negotiate. Um, and then that way when they sell all these tickets, there’s money left over that after paying for this Jeep that they can donate, you know, that’s amazing.

 

Very nice. I may have to put in for this. Uh, I wonder if I’ll be disqualified because I did an interview with you, Jason.

 

Well, I am in no way. I don’t get to draw any of it. So I think this is important for you to mention that way. People aren’t trying to bribe you or I don’t know somebody from the rotary comes up there and they’re the ones that draw. I mean, I’ve, I’ve told people in my family, I’ve told them, like, no, you should, you should buy ticket. Oh yeah. We’re affiliated with it. We just, our exposure of Jeep community helps them sell the tickets, you know? So it’s yeah, somebody’s going to drive it home. Well, Jason, let me, let me see if I can make a deal with you. If I buy a ticket and the Jeep talk show wins this Jeep, uh, would you be willing to drive it down and you just get home? However you, however you can.

 

Yeah.

 

I’ll drive it down there. I’ll take you, I’ll take you to buy some actual Texas barbecue and then you can, you can find your way home all by yourself.

 

And this is a two door people. Two doors are great. I know everybody wants a JLU these days or a four door Jeep, but two doors are very nimble and handy off-road. I mean, I always think a two door is a much better choice than a four door for actually going off-road. So, yep. Really cool. My first door and that’s what I have now. I love it. I like this because you get the, the benefit of saying we’re going to be doing, uh, giving away a Jeep. Well, yeah, it’s not exactly what you said that you said the rotary column is, but you get the benefit of your, uh, the event being associated with a free Jeep and you don’t have to hassle with people coming up and begging, begging for help from you, help me, help me. I need a Jeep. It’s not me. It’s them.

 

I think it’s actually something that makes us pretty unique because I, I’ve, like I said, I’ve been to a lot of Jeep events. There’s only one other Jeep event I’ve been to that gives away a Jeep at their event and that’s in Daytona. Um, at Jeep beach, which is huge. Um, but a lot of other events I’ve been to, they don’t, they don’t give away a Jeep. And so it’s pretty neat that somebody at our event every year drives home on a brand new Jeep. And this has happened every, uh, all three years or the, uh, the prior two years. Yep. The first, the first year a local guy won it and we still see him driving around town and he loves it. And then, yeah, last year a guy who just heard about it by looking at our website and everything was like, well, I can’t make it, but I’ll take a flyer for a hundred bucks. And, um, yep, they actually called him on the phone because he wasn’t here. They called him up on the phone while they were after they made the drawing. And he’s like, I’m getting a plane ticket. And a couple of days later, he was here in town and he got in it and drove it back to Wisconsin. So, uh, I’m going to get in trouble because we have an event. I can’t remember the name of the event. Uh, but we have an event, uh, that we, we interview, uh, the people that put on this event here in Texas, they basically have like this little built in, uh, stream in the town. It’s a very nice little town here in Texas, up, up around Dallas, you know, that they don’t actually count as Texas. But anyway, they, they have this, this rubber duck thing where they, you, you, uh, adopt a duck and it has a little number on it and they do this little race with all these hundreds or thousands of ducks. And if your duck goes across the finish line first, you win a Jeep.

 

Whoa. And we’ve been a part of this for, uh, for two or three years now. And in the second year, one of our Jeep talk show team members, we call him rat bastard won the Jeep.

 

So whenever you said about the Jeep giveaway, I went, wow, is everybody doing this? So there’s actually an event here that’s coming up, I think in October, uh, we, we, of course in Texas, we can have events in October.

 

And, uh, yeah, I’ve decided, I tried looking it up. I’m sorry. They, they are screaming at the radio or their, their phone or whatever right now telling me it’s blah, blah, blah. I’m sorry. I know who you are. I love you. I just can’t remember the name. Uh, but yeah, it’s a, that’s a very unique thing to be given away a Jeep or be associated with a giveaway at your event. So, uh, that’s great. And it’s great advertising for you guys. Sure. All right, man. Uh, you know how the kids love the social media. Where can they find you on social media, you or the event or anything else you got going on? There’s no only fans, please.

 

Right. So our Facebook page is on, uh, it is Grand Haven Jeep Fest on Facebook. Um, that’s where you’re going to find most of the stuff that gets posted and shared. Uh, we do have an Instagram page, Grand Haven Jeep Fest on Instagram.

 

Um, I don’t know anything about Tik TOK or, or, so I’m not on there. Well, you got gray in your beard. You need to call it the proper name for anybody who has gray in their beard. It’s called tick tack. I don’t know nothing about that. This tick tack stuff.

 

Maybe if I can get one of my, I have all my kids are either teenagers or early twenties. I need to get them to do that because there you go. But yeah, Instagram, Facebook, um, is our social media stuff. GH Jeep Fest.com is our website, uh, where we share a lot of stuff. Um, and you’ll, so you’ll see all of our stuff gets shared, uh, to those, uh, places as well, um, if we’re out doing things, um, Jeep related that aren’t affiliated with Jeep Fest, um, my Instagram is Jeep guy, 1979. Um, and I’ll share a like when I’m actually out getting a chance when I’m not working on any of this stuff and actually get to take my Jeep and do stuff, we’ll share it on there as well and plug a Jeep Fest on there too. But yeah, those, those places will give you everything that’s going on. Uh, with Jeep Fest. Very, very cool. And before we wrap this thing up, was there anything that we didn’t cover that you’d like to mention really quick or did I do a thorough job? I did. The one thing I would mention that is new this year too, is, uh, the goose chase scavenger hunt, and if you’ve been to other Jeep events, you might’ve done a goose chase before where you, it’s an app on your phone and it kind of introduces you to different places around town and you earn points and tickets and things to help win prizes. We’ve introduced that this year as well. And if you’re a registered guest, you can win, uh, prizes for the points that you earn, that’s another reason we tell people to register, but it’s a real fun way to play along and you’ll see other people posting stuff that’s, um, part of the scavenger hunt pictures of their Jeep or, you know, different adventures they’ve done, what off-roading things they’ve done. It’ll help you find places to eat when you’re here. Oh, that’s great. Yeah. You had me, uh, you had me at find places to eat. You know, that’s one of the adventures about going places is you may find some places really good to eat and, uh, it’s, that’s always fun, especially for a family experience, and this is definitely a family event. 100%. 100%. All right, Jason, thank you very much for making time for us today and we’ll have to have you back. Uh, you know, you got a Jeep, so I know you have more to talk about than the Grand Haven, uh, Jeep event. So we’ll have to talk to about that. And, uh, maybe the next time we have you on, you’ll, we’ll find out what, who the rat bastard was that won this Jeep. Absolutely.

 

Did he name the Jeep rat bastard? He should. Damn it. We all, we all hate him and love him at the same time.

 

All right, man. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.

 

Hey, thanks again to Jason Rogers of Grand Haven Jeep Fest. Visit their website right now.

 

GH Jeep Fest.com G is in grand H is in haven Jeep Fest.com. And, uh, this, I would really like to go to this. I wish it wasn’t so far away, but this looks like a really neat place to go to and visit. And, uh, boy, if you have Jeeps there as well, that just makes it that much better. Hey, coming up next week, Chris of classic four by four. That’s classic four by four. Dot com.

 

And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of the Jeep talk show. I want to give a big thank you to our special guests for joining us today and sharing their knowledge and experience with the Jeep community. Remember, we have four episodes a week and with Chick chat, it’s five. And it’s understandable if you have missed past episodes, you can always find us on your favorite podcast podcast platform, or our website with over 1000 episodes. Plenty of Jeep talk show to entertain you while driving to your destination, working out at the gym or mow in the grass, improve your day by listening to more Jeep talk show.

 

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