Announcing the 2020 Middle Tennessee Drive-Thru Walk Like MADD

Because of ongoing COVID-19 restrictions/recommendations, gathering in a large group for our traditional Walk Like MADD event is not feasible. However, we are happy to announce an exciting alternative. The 2020 Middle Tennessee Walk Like MADD will now be a Drive-Thru Walk Like MADD with a new location at Elmington Park in Nashville on Saturday, October 24, 2020. Be sure to read our FAQ’s below to learn how this event will work in conjunction with an online Virtual Opening Ceremony.

As always, your health and safety are our top priority. But, we also understand that this is an important event to so many of our victims/survivors and their families. It is an avenue to healing and an opportunity to give voice to those who can no longer walk with us. We believe that this new Drive-Thru option will allow our Walk participants to join together in a way that will keep everyone safe, yet still feel more like our traditional event.

Your participation in this event is vital to MADD Tennessee, now more than ever! The Walk Like MADD event brings in much needed funds to support victim’s services and provide prevention/educational programming in our state. Though the world has changed, MADD is still providing free victims services to those who have been impacted by impaired driving crashes at a time when our victims need us most. It is even more important in these uncertain times that our victims know MADD is still here and available for the emotional support and guidance on which they have come to rely. We are proud to be working virtually to continually meet these needs. We are also still working diligently to provide programming to help parents and students understand the dangers of underage drinking and drugs via in-person and Zoom presentations, to show offenders the real-life consequences of impaired driving crashes through our Victim Impact Panel program, and to monitor DUI court cases through our Court Monitoring program to ensure they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law. To continue to provide these critical services, your support is needed and deeply appreciated! Our 2020 Middle Tennessee Drive-Thru Walk Like MADD is an important part of helping us continue to do what we do and we thank you, in advance, for your participation!

So let’s talk about how this will work:

What will happen on the day of the event?

We will begin our day with a Virtual Opening Ceremony which everyone can safely watch from home. It will be broadcast on our @MADDTennessee Facebook page. Online check-in will begin at 9:45am so that we can make sure everyone is signed-on and ready for our Opening Ceremony to begin at 10am. Opening Ceremony should conclude no later than 11am. Participants will then have an hour and a half to grab some lunch and make their way to Elmington Park in Nashville. At 12:30pm we will begin checking everyone in and lining cars up in the Staging Area at the back of the park. At 1pm, we will begin our Drive-Thru Kick-off through our Walk Route at the front of the park where all of our traditional Walk signs will be displayed. The Drive-Thru portion of the event will also be broadcast on Facebook LIVE.

What about Team Alley and all the Victim Tables?

For our live Walk Like MADD events, teams are invited to set-up a table on “Team Alley” to display momentos and photos to honor and remember those for whom they walk. For our Drive-Thru Walk Like MADD, we will not be able to offer table set-up. However, we will offer two opportunities for teams to honor loved ones: a virtual team table and a mobile team table.

1. Virtual Team Table: Because a portion of the event will be conducted virtually, we will offer a Virtual Team Alley. Click here for instructions on how to participate by sending us a brief video to represent your team’s table. In short, you can set up an actual “table” in your home and decorate it as you would at a live event, then do a video describing the items on display, OR you can simply walk around your home and make a video showing us your photos and momentos as they are normally displayed there. The videos will be posted to our Virtual Team Alley page and available to view shortly after we receive them. They will stay active past the Walk event date.
2. Mobile Team Table: Participants will begin arriving at our Staging Area at 12:30pm so that we can get all the cars lined up for the Drive-Thru Walk Kick-Off that begins at 1pm. We encourage teams to use this staging time to decorate their cars in honor/memory of loved ones! We will be driving slowly through the park so feel free to tape posters, ribbons, etc. on your car. (A quick Google search of “how to decorate car for parade” will provide tons of examples and ideas for inspiration!)

What about our team and personal Walk pages?

Our Walk site with all our individual and team pages will function the same. You will register to participate and set-up your pages at www.walklikemadd.org/MiddleTN. But there will be some cool new tools available for participants to use including an option to do livestreaming from your own Walk page and to set milestones for your team. Don’t worry: we have instructions for you which can be found in the Participant Center.

How will Registration work?

Just like with a live event, you will have the option of registering as an Adult Walker for $25 or as a Youth Walker (ages 5-18) for $20. (If you cannot attend our Drive-Thru portion in-person, you can also register as a Virtual Adult Walker or Virtual Youth Walker for the same price.) Registered Adult and Youth Walkers will receive a MADD Cooling Neck Gaiter* at the Drive-Thru event. An Early Registration Discount will be offered until October 1, 2020, allowing for a $5 discount off regular registration fees. Online registration will close at 5pm on 10/22. But additional participants can register on the day of the event in the Staging Area.
*Neck Gaiters will be provided in lieu of a t-shirt and must be picked-up in person. But, you are welcome to have a friend pick yours up for you if you advise us in advance.

What is the same?

Teams/walkers will still use their own Walk pages to help spread awareness about MADD’s mission and engage friends, family, coworkers, and their community to donate to their page. As always, it is important that you customize your page to help people understand why supporting MADD is important to you. (Click here and go to page 4 for instructions on how to customize your page.) If you raise at least $150, you will also still have the opportunity to earn some great MADD logo merchandise. You become eligible for more gear the more you raise. Additionally, we will still honor and recognize the folks who raise the most with our Top Walker and Top Team awards during the virtual Opening Ceremony. Finally, on event day, we will still have Walk signs that tell the stories of the victims and survivors for whom we walk. Those are the signs that will be posted on our Walk route and broadcast during the Facebook Live event.

What else is different?

Another part of the live event which everyone enjoys, is seeing all of our corporate, community, and law enforcement partners join us with demonstrations and tables to talk about why they support MADD’s mission. Since they can’t join us in-person, we will also have a Virtual Partner Page available so that everyone can still get the benefit of learning about some of our fabulous and dedicated supporters! Make sure you check them out!