In This Issue
- WANADA is Helping Our Members During the COVID-19 Crisis
- WANADA Donates $50,000 to MedStar G'town for COVID-19 Treatment
- How a Member of the WANADA Family Turned Pain into Policy
- Maryland Issues Moratorium on Repossessions, Evictions
- NBC 4 Shows How WANADA Dealers Are Continuing to Serve Customers
- Best Practices for Keeping Dealerships and Repair Shops Safe
- WANADA Remembers Longtime Friend Bobby Mitchell
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During this time of unprecedented uncertainty for businesses of all sizes, WANADA is committed to doing everything possible to support our members during this crisis.
With that top of mind, WANADA is offering a no-interest deferral on two months of dental premiums for those who get dental coverage through the organization’s Insurance and Benefits Trust. Dental insurance clients will have the ability to defer their premiums for May and June, and pay them back in six monthly installments between July and December 2020. Please contact Ed Mullaney at
em@wanada.org
if you have any questions about this offer.
In addition, WANADA is waiving all tuition costs for participants in the
Automobile Dealer Education Institute
for the spring 2020 semester. This is designed to ensure that students whose coursework and in-person instruction schedules have been upended by COVID-19 are held harmless for the impact COVID-19 has had on the program.
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Earlier this week, WANADA made a $50,000 donation to MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, to help support its work screening and treating patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the COVID-19 crisis continues to spread across the world, hospitals are being stretched to the limits, while doctors, nurses, and support staff members are putting themselves at risk to heroically provide care to at-risk patients. WANADA, through this donation, is supporting a vital institution in our region in their time of need.
“MedStar Georgetown staff members are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, working tirelessly to help save lives,” WANADA Chairman Kevin Reilly said. “WANADA, and our member auto dealers, are thankful for their service to the Washington metro area in this critical time.”
“MedStar Georgetown University Hospital is deeply grateful for this remarkable gift of support from WANADA,” said Hospital president Mike Sachtleben. “This gift will further enable us to strengthen our efforts in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an unprecedented time in our Nation and this Hospital’s history, and I want to express our sincere thanks to the members of WANADA and those in our community who have given so generously of themselves to help support our mission during this critical time.”
If you would like to support MedStar Georgetown Hospital during this time of critical need,
please visit this link
for information on how to donate online, by phone, or by text. If you wish to donate online,
please click here
and select “MedStar Georgetown University Hospital” in the drop-down menu on the donation page.
Please click here
to view video from Kevin Reilly’s appearance on Fox 5 this past weekend, where he discussed WANADA’s donation.
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To tell the story of Julie Funkhouser is to tell a story of resilience in times of great pain, of a life where her biggest challenges and lowest moments were the catalysts for her biggest successes. It is to tell a story about meeting both her husband and her best friend during the second most difficult time in her life, and how that time, and those two people, were the catalysts for a life focused on helping the most vulnerable.
The daughter of RRR Automotive chairman Richard Patterson, who is also a former WANADA chairman, Julie moved from Northern Virginia in 2008 and checked into an inpatient recovery center in Winchester. In 2011, while in recovery, she met Danny Funkhouser, who would become her husband, with whom she had two children. And she also met Meredith Speir when she arrived in Winchester, who would become her best friend, her business partner, and her most trusted confidant.
After leaving rehab, Julie attended Shenandoah University in Winchester, earning a degree in psychology. She got a job working at local mental health clinic, and she and Danny, who himself got clean and remained so for six years, moved into a house and had two children.
One day in early 2018, Meredith, who was volunteering at a local treatment facility, called Julie in search of a bed for a loved one who needed help for substance abuse. The two quickly realized there was a need in northwest Virginia for long-term care that bridges the gap between the typical four-week rehab experience and a return to their homes.
During the spring and summer that year, Meredith and Julie worked hard to start what would become
The Recovery Connection
. They developed a business plan, networked with health advocates who could help them navigate the field and develop a program, and secured a location for their facility in Winchester. Together, they celebrated a combined 23 years of recovery, and the fact that their idea for a transitional recovery facility had turned into reality.
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Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland
issued an executive order last week
that bars creditors from repossessing automobiles, trucks, or mobile residences during the remainder of the state's COVID-19 catastrophic health emergency. This order, however, does not impose any kind of suspension of a creditor's ability to continue assessing payments or penalties.
While this order is largely a moratorium on a number of types of evictions, the section most relevant to our members is Section III, which is reproduced below.
III. Prohibition on Certain Repossessions.
To the extent any statute, rule or regulation of the State of Maryland or any political subdivision would permit a Creditor to repossess any automobile, truck, or Chattel Home by self-help (including, without limitation,
CL §§ 9-609
,
12-115
,
12-624
,
12-1021
, or
14-2008
), such statute, rule, or regulation is hereby suspended until the state of emergency is terminated and the catastrophic health emergency is rescinded.
The moratorium also creates a 90-day forbearance period on foreclosures once that process is initiated, and that forbearance period is in effect until the end of the state of emergency or when superseded by another executive order.
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NBC 4
and their consumer affairs reporter Susan Hogan visited Alexandria Hyundai last week, where owner (and WANADA chairman) Kevin Reilly discussed the ways that his dealership, and others like it, are going above and beyond to continue providing essential services during this time.
As of the end of March, more than 80 percent of dealerships were still performing at least some sales functions, and dealerships like Alexandria Hyundai are taking great care to ensure that their employees are taking great care to protect their sales and service customers. Alexandria Hyundai’s employees are covering seats and wheels in protective barriers before setting foot in any vehicle, and then they’re driving those serviced vehicles directly to customers’ homes.
Dealerships across the region are also getting creative and implementing robust
customer service tools online
, and are even offering test-drive services at a customer’s home.
WANADA applauds our member dealers who are going above and beyond Maryland and Virginia’s business mandates, to ensure that their workers remain employed, and that their customers can get top-flight service in a way that is extremely safe for drivers and workers alike.
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As auto repair facilities and dealerships continue to provide essential services during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is absolutely critical that dealers take extreme care to keep workspaces and vehicles as clean as possible.
It’s vital that dealers comply stringently with state and local social distancing and capacity guidelines, but that requires detailed knowledge of actually how to accomplish those things in order to continue operating while doing everything possible to prevent employees and customers from potentially getting sick.
WANADA Kindred-Line member
Diamond Dealer Services
, an auto detailing company based in Owings Mills, Md., has produced a guideline of key disinfecting best-practices for dealers. To view the guide,
please click here
.
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Bobby Mitchell, who in 1962 became the first player to integrate the Washington Redskins,
passed away last weekend at the age of 84
. A civil rights hero in this region long after his retirement from the NFL in 1969, Mitchell worked in the Redskins’ front office until the beginning of the 21st Century and was an active leader in the area’s philanthropic community until his death.
A cornerstone of Mitchell’s charitable endeavors was the annual Bobby Mitchell Hall of Fame Golf Classic, of which WANADA was a title sponsor for several years beginning in 2002. WANADA’s involvement was spearheaded by the encouragement of dealer members Bob Rosenthal and Richard Patterson, who were long-standing supporters of the event. In the decade that WANADA was involved in the event, which ran through its concluding year in 2012, the golf outing raised nearly $500,000 annually for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
Every summer at the Lansdowne Golf Resort in Ashburn, the Bobby Mitchell Classic gathered dozens of icons from across the sporting world, including Bill Russell, Darrell Green, Oscar Robertson, Sonny Jurgensen, and dozens of others who were legends in their sport of choice. WANADA member dealers and Kindred-Line members routinely donated hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in cash and raffle items to help support the LLS’ fight against blood cancers, and for several years the event was known as the Bobby Mitchell Auto Dealer Classic.
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