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Greenway ‘Drive for Charity’ Brings Large Gift…A New Van

For the third year in a row, ECHO accepted a large check from the Greenway Drive For Charity. The gift, said CEO Bill Haney, will finance a much-needed fourth van to transport the ECHO program participants to their work sites.

Starting in 2006, the Greenway has donated every penny collected the third Thursday in May at its toll booths to five local charities and to its own scholarship

program. On May 19, 2011 that came to $235,354.87 – a whopping $10,000 more than the record setting (then) $226,246 collected in 2010.

Only the support of the entire community has made this fund raising such a spectacular success, said Terry Hoffman, the Greenway’s manger of customer and public relations. “That makes it possible for us to give this amount of money.”

The other four beneficiaries of the Greenway’s generosity are Loudoun Abused Women’s Shelter, Fresh Air/Full Care, Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy and the March of Dimes.

ECHO buses are such a common sight on the Greenway, said Greenway CEO Thomas Sines, that he gets inquiries about the “Greenway Connector Buses.” He dubs the small fleet “Bill’s Greenway Bus Service.”

Less than three weeks after collecting the tolls, Greenway management invited the recipients to a lunch at Clyde’s Willow Creek Farm in Ashburn and handed over the checks. Hoffman noted that the Greenway had turned to ECHO’s document removal and disposal service earlier this year when they had to clear out several storage buildings on short notice.

By Shannon Sollinger