On Friday December 19th, 2008, the Arizona Ghostbusters had the great honor of attending the Snowball Express at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Snowball express is an organization and event dedicated to creating new memories for families that have lost loved ones in the American Armed Forces during combat. The overall event covers several days including a day at Disneyland and Universal Studios. All travel, lodging, and entertainment expenses are covered for the families and everything is donated by the sponsors even down to the fuel for the airplanes. Over 1,000 participants were brought in from around the country for the event.

We were in invited to participate in the carnival day held at the convention center. Alot of the major sponsors of the event had booths set up with games and handouts. Oakley gave out special Snowball Express sunglasses and watches to the families for example. One of the largest booths was set up by a local Pirate costuming club in California. They had a band set up and several of the cast from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies with them. Other costumers walking around were Santa Claus, Geoge Washington, Elmo, Minnie Mouse, Hello Kitty, Snoopy, Snow White, Wildwing from the Anaheim Ducks, the Nesquik Bunny and even a Steven Spielburg and Jack Nicholson impersonators. Motorcycles and classic cars were also on display as well as R/C planes, facepainting, etc. A few celebrities including Nestor Carbonell (Mayor in Dark Knight or Batmanuel if you remember The Tick) and skater Bob Burnquist were also there.

The event started with the “Walk of Gratitude” outside the convention center. All of the volunteers lined up along the sidewalk and waved flags as families walked by into the center. The response we recieved was overwhelming and I believe we set a new record of the number of small children recognizing Ghostbusters. We handed our AZ logo stickers to all the children we took pictures with and were glad to see them all wearing them throughout the day. It was an amazing experience to be able to attend this event and see that the American spirit is still alive. These families losses are incalculable, but I'm glad we were part of something giving back to them. One memory I know our team will keep is when a small boy came up to us and said “Thank You.”

A video about the event and organization is here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/28318981#28318981

For more information on Snowball express http://www.snowballexpress.org

We didn't many of our own pictures with the familes but I'll post what we have. Most were taken before people came into the hall.

Banner



Anaheim Convention Center



Lining up for the Walk



Next to the Pirates



Santa and helpers



Convention Floor



Oakley Booth



Skaters and police chopper



Jeff, Matt H, Zak, and Neal



Matt with Elmo and Knott's Berry Farm hat



Jeff with Snow White



The team with one of the Jack Sparrows



With the Nesquik Rabbit

I cant stress this enough you guys are the best Im an ex soldier myself and some of my friends passed when we were in Iraq God or whom ever you belive in bless you
SRA Theodore USAF

Thank you so much. Your words mean alot to us. We're glad than an organization exists to offer support to these families. Unfortunately they are a very overlooked group of people. I had to fight back many tears myself during the walk of gratitude. Almost every family was wearing shirts or buttons with pictures of their loved ones on them.

Here is a youtube video of a really great slideshow of all of the days of the event

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEGOdO3OJSM

A pic of our team is at 4:08.