It is no ordinary golf cart. Electric powered and street legal, she will soon be traveling 4,000 miles cross country, all to raise money and awareness for the Wounded Warrior Project.
Chief Petty Officer Ray Rehberg is an electrician at the Coast Guard Training Center in Yorktown. He had the idea after doing research on lithium powered golf carts. After brainstorming with other off-duty and retired Coasties, Rehberg realized he could combine two of his passions. The non-profit GO CARTS was born.
"It comes with part of the job that you just want to help people all the time and I thought this was a unique way to take something that I learned from the Coast Guard and apply it to something like this. Everybody thinks, 'What are you doing? You're crazy.' No, it's just one of those things that we're going to do and we believe in and it's going to happen.”
Alongside Rehberg, other off-duty members of the U.S. Coast Guard and other branches of the Military have volunteered their time to help out with the project.
Starting in May, the plan is to drive the donated golf cart from the Coast Guard Training Center in Petaluma, California through 13 states at a speed of 25 miles per hour. The journey will end back in Yorktown Memorial Day Weekend.
"It’s never been done before,” Rehberg says. “Nobody has ever driven a golf cart across America from coast to coast, at least not an electric one."
The goal is to raise $50,000 for the Wounded Warrior Project. Along the way, the group will be stopping at VFW’s and VA hospitals to visit with the men and women who risked everything.
"I want to hear their story,” Rehberg says. “I want to hear not only the wounded warriors, but all veterans. I want to get their story out."
For more information on GO CARTS or to donate to their project, check out their website: http://www.cartingforacause.org/index.php
