SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake Bees fans entered the gates of Smith's Ballpark Thursday and made their way up the concrete steps. Halfway up, a young boy and girl stopped a few fans to offer a free gift.
The foundation typically gives away more than 100,000 cars a year to children all over the world, he explained."We say: Take wood that would be wasted and make a toy for a little mind, so a little mind won't be wasted," Thacker said. "Because when you play with a little toy, you imagine. And if it has a face on it, you're talking to it."Thacker's cousin, Nile Thacker, understood that mission.
In early December, as Nile Thacker drove a load of 1,000 cars to hospitals around the Salt Lake Valley, he was"A Dodge pickup truck came down the offramp at very high speeds, around 90 mph," Julie Merrill said. She said there were no signs of stopping. She would later find out that police suspected the driver who hit and killed her father, 72-year-old Asael Paul Lyman, was. Julie Merrill said Lyman had a 6-year-old child in the truck with him, and both of them were not seriously injured in the crash.
Julie Merrill hopes to spread a message against drinking and driving, and for people to keep their friends and family members accountable. Meanwhile, volunteers continue building cars at Tiny Tim's Toy Factory, albeit with a huge, empty hole in their volunteer family.