Our Senior Founder/Director Daniel Spolar has been recognized by Jeff Teolis from Pinball Profile as one of the Top 10 Most Intriguing Pinball People of 2018!! It is great to be recognized for all the effort that he has put forth for the charity and how it helps many others through pinball!
Make sure to listen to the amazing podcast below by clicking the Play Button!
Take 2 minutes out of your day to watch this wonderful video regarding Project Pinball’s most recent Pinball Machine Dedication at The Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Near Egleston! This pinball machine dedication shows our many supporters from the Atlanta community and a call to action from our very own Senior Founder/Director Daniel Spolar!
Check out the ways you can help push Project Pinball further!!
Check out this awesome trailer for our brand new “Meet Project Pinball” Film Documentary!
Come join us as we showcase Imoto Harney and her film crew’s wonderful efforts filming during two of our recent dedications at the Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida and Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities.
This is a touching documentary that captures the emotions, the impact…. the reasons how Project Pinball delivers joy to a hospital setting by using a pinball machine for that special purpose.
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https://drive.google.com/file/d/17V08GppP4umR0DFhBHK94xgF43JXckr0/view
Check out this great video about Project Pinball’s partnership with Beercade in Omaha, Nebraska!
Since Project Pinball Charity was founded back in 2011, we developed a master plan to guide our road ahead with several detailed phases that would shape our impact through pinball.
At this time, we are proud to announce that we are ready to launch publicly our charity’s Phase Two. Phase Two is our new Rx Pinball Program which is a STEM and STEAM-based special needs development program. If you are not familiar with what STEM is, it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. STEM aims to foster collaboration skills, logical reasoning, and inquiring minds. It is an amazing educational program in that we can involve many aspects of a pinball machine, with therapeutic and educational benefits as our priority. We can show children and their families how much “pinball” can do for them.
Phase Two will be the introduction to our STEM and Special Needs Programs that we have developed in partnership with doctors, nurses, specialists, professors, and teachers from medical and educational settings, and other professional fields. This will go hand and hand with the pinball machines that we have placed and will be expanded upon with every new addition to our children’s hospital and Ronald McDonald Home pinball machine locations.
As a complete integration, our goal is to help assist the child life specialists to not only keep it fun and interesting for the kids, providing a therapeutic release, but to also teach them something in the process. Each hospital is different and has different needs for its patients, which is why we felt it was important to keep the development programs flexible, with the ability to be tailored to our hosts’ specific needs.
Phase Two will also open the school doors to local communities.
We are actively offering our Pinball STEM programs to schools across the nation!
Please follow our progress. For more information, you can find us on our website www.projectpinball.org You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as well!
Thank you for your continued support, gifts, donations, and kind words to help us grow as a pinball charity.
Best Wishes,
Daniel Spolar
Project Pinball Charity
We are super excited to update our supporters, donators, and followers of a very exciting thing that has came up due to the Project Pinball Charities impact! As you are probably aware we started back in 2011 and since then several other pinball charities have risen with our help! As we want all of our incredible supporters to know that none of this would have been possible without you! We have been working very hard to help more kids and families than ever before. As we continue to do so we are getting our impact to reach farther than ever before, even globally!
We just received word that in Strasbourg, France there is a new charity starting that will be putting 3 pinball machines and 3 foosball tables in the Strasbourg-Hautepierre Hospital. With their goal being, “A charity project that shines in the eyes of sick children”. A very touching goal and we are so excited to be on this journey with this wonderful charity! We would love if our supporters, followers, and donators would take a moment to look at this awesome charity and know that because of all your help that this is possible! Our impact has crossed the oceans and we cannot wait to see what the future holds for all of us!
Check out the website for the charity in the link below! See what they are all about, give your support and feedback to them, also tell us what you think on our Facebook page!
http://www.deslumieresdanslesyeux.fr/en/to-make-a-donation/
Project Pinball was proudly featured on NBC Nightly News during a segment about the ‘Make A Film Foundation’. They grant film wishes to kids battling serious diseases, giving them a chance to shine as they write and star in their own movie. As one of our wonderful Project Pinball supporters, 16-year-old Anthony Conti got the amazing opportunity to be a star in his own movie “The Black Ghiandola”. Anthony proudly wore our Project Pinball t-shirt during his movie premiere to showcase his support for everything that we do. Check out this amazing story for yourself on the link below!
Project Pinball Charity, with the support of Stern Pinball, Inc. and Marco Specialties, is kicking off their 2nd annual Love across America tour. Beginning June 30th, founder Daniel Spolar will travel over 10,000 miles, visiting 26 states to dedicate pinball machines in 5 children’s hospitals 5 different cities across the nation.
Project Pinball focused their charity’s mission on the understanding of the thousands of children undergoing intensive medical treatment in children’s hospitals across the United States. Their goal is to help ease their pain and speed up children’s recovery by providing a motivation to get out of bed, to socialize, and have fun by playing an iconic American pastime… Pinball!
“We assist in enriching children’s lives through active play and diversion from hospital life,” said Daniel Spolar, the charity’s founder and Senior Director. “Pinball allows patients the opportunity to focus on something other than medical tests, medications, and procedures. We have the opportunity to give them a chance to have fun, laugh and smile and just be kids.”
Headquartered in Bonita Springs, Florida, Project Pinball Charity, a nonprofit 501(c)(3), has been maintaining and donating machines for use in Children’s Hospitals since 2013 and has since become a nationwide organization with pinball machines in hospitals across the U.S.A. They now have 18 pinball machines placed in children’s hospitals nationwide.
Project Pinball is scheduled to deliver machines to children’s hospitals in Denver, Cincinnati, San Diego, and Chicago, as well as attend several fundraisers throughout the US. During their travels they will also be attending social gatherings and three pinball expos. “Last year we met so many amazing people, we cannot wait to share Project Pinball!”
“We’re thankful for the opportunity to team up with Project Pinball Charity again and support Project Pinball on their nationwide trek,” says Gary Stern, Chairman and CEO of Stern Pinball. “We’re looking forward to sharing our love for pinball with patients and uplifting their hospital experience.”
The Project Pinball Charity is a labor of love for Daniel Spolar. It started with love for the game of pinball. “My children had left home and started their own lives; there was a gap. I reflected back on my past and remembered my love of pinball,” said Spolar. He looked on the Internet and found a thriving underground community of pinball enthusiasts, “pinheads.” Additionally, he discovered where to find pinball machines for himself and his friend and partner, Dave Denholtz. Each partner now has 10 – 12 pinball machines in their own homes and they participate in pinball tournaments.
“It’s not uncommon for pinheads to have sanctioned tournaments in their own homes,” said Spolar. He acquired a unique skill to stay in the game: he repairs pinball machines, an uncommon art.
It is necessary since Spolar and his partner have acquired more than 80 additional pinball machines in the last two years, and a warehouse mezzanine to store them and share the game with friends. They call it the Pinball Asylum and joke that they are the inmates. “Every machine is a unique find,” said Spolar, a Bonita Springs resident and business owner.
“My wife started Project Pinball Charity with a call from Chrissy Brown, Inpatient Oncology/Hematology Unit at Golisano’s Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida. They had a donated pinball machine that was in such disrepair that it was unused. She called me to make the repair,” said Spolar.
The heartwarming response from local and internet pinball enthusiasts to come up with the parts, including $1000 in parts from one anonymous donor, let Spolar know he found a mission for his pinball activity and lovers of the game.
Once Spolar repaired the machine at Golisano’s Children’s Hospital, it provided hours of relaxation and release from stress for parents, children, staff and visitors. It was a hit. They found the same stress relief as the majority of pinball enthusiasts — concentrating on the game frees the mind from its other concerns and provides a time of joy, laughter and excitement. What better gift for children and families in hospitals?
The Pinball Asylum is incorporated as a non-profit and can receive donations for Project PinballCharity Group, providing for the needs of children who are hospitalized. Spolar loans pinball machines to fund-raising events that also raise awareness that the game is still alive and well. Friends are invited to private Pinball Asylum games for charity causes.
Part of the thrill with pinball machines is the communication with other enthusiasts across the nation and in other countries. They share information about available pinball machines and activities. The desire to provide a charity purpose is spreading across these groups. They also compete for standing in their organization.
The pinball machine at Golisano’s Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida that Spolar repaired was a memorial gift from parents who lost their child to cancer. Thanks to Project Pinball Charity Group, the once broken machine is now bringing the joy intended to other young children. Below you can view the process Daniel Spolar went through to clean up the Spider-Man machine for the patients of Golisano’s Children’s Hospital.
