Well, well, well.......it was a little over a month ago that I posted the first news that Fat Smittys was going to donate the money on the cafe wall to the Camp Parsons Dining Hall project. What did I first hear? "Oh, sure he is..." "you're crazy, why would he do that?" "you are making that up......". Well, it was mentioned in a little ditty by the Peninsula News. That story was then picked up by the wire and many of us found it in our regional papers. KOMO commented on this story a few days ago, and today not only did FOX news mention Fat Smitty's generous gift, we were also contacted by ABC news for a story. They have it on line now, but not much more than what you have read before.
So.....to all of you nay sayers I say.....bleh!
Carl Schmidt, the owner of the cafe enlisted the help of Scouts from around Port Townsend to come in and take down the dollar bills that have been accumulating since 1987. A little over $10,000 was collected, the vast majority being donated to the CP Dining Hall project with the remainder going to St. Jude's Children Hospital. Mr. Schmidt certainly has done his good deed and on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of scouts that have attended Camp Parsons through the years past and the years to come we say thank you. That is the least we can do and I have no doubt we will probably recognize him and his business in some other way as well. Along those same lines, I also have thank the hundreds of staff members that patronized Carl's business through the years as well as those troops who stopped there for a "quick" burger (like there is anything quick about it). The staff always looked at going to Fat Smittys as a treat, almost to the point where it was an annoyance to me because that was all you heard. When friends of mine whose sons worked at CP would come up to visit they would say, "oh, I will be back later, I am taking my son and his friends out to some place called Fat Smittys." I guess I can't complain anymore and instead, go up and have a Smitty burger myself.
It is nice to see local philantropy stay local. I am surprised how many people who live on the peninsula don't even know we exist even though we have been there longer in duration than almost any other business out there. I am pleased that there is some local and now national media attention as well, though I am not sure if that is going to help us raise the money we need for the dining hall. However, it may put us a little more solidly on the "map" for Boy Scout camps. Then again, I am not sure if we need that now as we can't even fit the people in that want to come now. Oh well, the publicity is good. One of my staff members mentioned to me, "well, there is no such thing as bad publicity". Well, no, there is bad publicity, but this isn't it.
So Fat Smittys, from our new dining hall facility to your cafe.....thank you again for helping us reach our goal to provide a program for an ever expanding scout base.