Project Pinball Honored at Walter Day’s 90th Trading Card Award Ceremonies

The celebration of Walter Aldro Day Jr.’s 70th Birthday took place May 18th, in Banning, California. It was held at the Museum of Pinball. John Weeks, the founder of the museum, brought about two dozen of the most popular and iconic arcade videos and pinballs for the party-goers to play for free.

Walter Day himself held his 90th trading card award ceremony as well, where Project Pinball was honored to receive not our first but SECOND trading card into the hall of fame. Project Pinball was one of the hundreds of new exclusive trading cards that were unveiled at the ceremony. We were so grateful and honored to be in attendance for Walter’s birthday celebration! This card took several months of planning and designing exclusively for our charity.

We are deeply honored to be receiving recognition once again for our charity’s accomplishments!

You can find more information on Walter Day’s card collection at https://thewalterdaycollection.com/

Project Pinball’s NEW Office and Team Member!

We have a new office and a new team member here at the Project Pinball Charity!

 

At the beginning of this year, we made BIG changes here at the Project Pinball Headquarters. We expanded our office by over 900 square feet! We now have not one but TWO extra rooms for pinball machines. That’s twice the fun! We even expanding our staff and added a new team member!

 

Meet Chelsey, born and raised in SWFL; she is currently finishing up her bachelor’s degree in Information Technology. Chelsey will oversee running and coordinating all of Project Pinball’s events and marketing!

She will be attending the Midwest Gaming Classic with Senior Founder/Director Daniel Spolar next weekend! Make sure you give her a warm welcome to the pinball community!

Love Across America Tour 2018

The Project Pinball Team is preparing for our 4th Annual Love Across America Tour!

We are thrilled to announce that we are heading out on to the road again! This tour will provide us with the opportunity to do so many wonderful things throughout the entire month of July! The love and support we receive along the way are remarkable and we are always happy to give the gift of pinball!

On this tour, we will be traveling across the United States to plenty of destinations! These include New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Texas, Nebraska, Georgia, Florida, and so many more destinations in between!

We will be in attendance of 3 great shows Southern-Fried Gaming Expo, Pintastic New England, and Replay FX/Pinburgh. We can’t wait to spread the Project Pinball experience across the country! To stay updated on our progress, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!

July 2017 Bonus Play Newsletter

Check out Project Pinball’s Bonus Play News Letter for the month of July! This is a great way to keep up with the charity and to read about special things have been happening! It also gives you great insight to what is coming up for the charity and where we will be heading!
Stay tuned in and up to date on all of our social media as we continue our amazing journey!

Thank you for all the love and support, we couldn’t do what we do without all of our incredible followers and supporters!

Love Across America Tour 2017

The Project Pinball Team is preparing for our 3rd Annual Love Across America Tour!

We are thrilled to announce that we are heading out on to the road again! This tour will provide us the opportunity to do a lot of good all throughout the month of July! The love and support we receive along the way is remarkable, and we are always happy to give the gift of pinball!

On this tour, we will be traveling across the United States to plenty of destinations. These include Maine, New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Florida!

We will be in attendance of 2 great shows Pintastic New England and Replay FX/Pinburgh. We can’t wait to spread the Project Pinball experience across the country! To stay updated with our progress, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!

Project Pinball’s “Firsts”

The holiday season is soon beginning and Project Pinball Charity is hitting the road again. This time to share joy in more children’s hospitals plus adding Ronald McDonald Houses to our “to do list”.

We are achieving planned goals and breaking through new boundaries and we have a lot of “firsts” for our charity this time out.

A Project Pinball first- we will be placing 5 machines in 5 different states after traveling over 4000 miles in less than 2 weeks time.

A Project Pinball first- We will be placing a pinball machine to be used for children with special needs. A doctor has asked to team-up with Project Pinball to start some research and collect data that can be used to develop programs to help these children through the benefits of pinball play. This has been the jump start needed to begin our 2nd phase of our elaborate mission plan.

A Project Pinball first- We have teamed up with Brad Baker, owner of VPcabs. He was thrilled to jump on board after he heard about our charity’s mission to help others through pinball. We will be placing our first video pinball machine that has been carefully handcrafted to add custom features to our machine that will give patients a greater variety of game play options.

A Project Pinball first- We will be introducing our charity’s service to, not one but to two, Ronald McDonald Houses, which are located in Columbus and Milwaukee. This opens a new brand new area of reach to add to our charity’s influence across the United States.

A Project Pinball first- We are adding new states to our pinball machines placed. We are excited to be entering New York, Connecticut, and Wisconsin.

A Project Pinball first- We have a new sponsor that has reached out to assist our charity with a new Star Trek pinball machine. Michael Daddona Jr., owner of Automated Services understands the impact that this new machine will have on the children and their lives.

Plus we have Joe Newhart of PinballSTAR Amusements helped us with the WOZ that will be introduced to the Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. Thank you Joe for being so caring and supportive by giving these gifts!

All delivered and setup just in time for the holidays.

We hope you join us on this exhilarating journey by staying updated with us on Pinside, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

 @Projectpinball

Best Wishes,
Daniel Spolar

5 Years!

It has been 5 years since we started Project Pinball Charity.

It is an amazing journey that life has given us. It has been 5 years since Project Pinball Charity began this journey to help families across the United States through our love of pinball. We support countless lives through our charity’s efforts that would take years to discuss the full impact, so we will keep it brief to give you the simplified update.

We have successfully placed twenty-two pinball machines in our Children’s Hospitals from the west coast to the east coast of the United States. We have another five pinball machine dedications, for a December Winter Campaign that we will be announced shortly, raising that total to twenty-six placed.

We don’t only place pinball machines but we actively support, maintain and provide children’s programs with these machines to keep our hospital partners happy. Our hospital community is quickly understanding the exciting therapeutic benefits our charity’s program presents. We developed a program that helps supports families in hospital settings that could use what a pinball machine is designed to offer.

We had a mission statement that has been followed from day one to guide us to our goals along this epic journey to establish a system that will last for years to come. What we do today will have positive lasting effects on these lives through their association with pinball.

All of this was through the help and support of our good friends across our globe- yes. I said, globe. Our charity’s supporters are world-wide which I can only feel truly blessed as I write this.

We would like thank all of our founding partners that helped start our charity’s journey. We were blessed to know Little Shop of Games- Curly has been our there from the first days to help assist and be there when we needed a father voice to guide our ambitions. We would not have started on our path if it was not for the generous nature of Gary Stern of Stern Pinball. Gary and his close associates provided everything that was needed to help us in our infancy to find the legs to walk forward. Marc, Nancy and Paul Mandletort of Marco Specialties have been a huge supporter of our charity’s efforts through this entire time. Matt Barlow has to be mention because he never is that person to sound his own trumpet.

Thank you to our numerous donors, patrons, supporters, followers, well wishers, ambassadors, sponsors, volunteers, community leaders, pinball people and friends that are too many to list individual names. We love you all! Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving and giving life to those in need.

As a charity we do this full time to get things done and our results speak volumes! We take what we do serous because of the impact our charity on the lives of children and their families. With your continued help and support we will continue to grow to help and support these families in our special way. Please, when it comes to giving back, it would mean the world to us if you remember us as a strong charity that you would like to help reach more and more families for the years to come.

We look forward to our journey ahead…. for many, many more years!

Palmetto Pinball Club Hosts Tournament

Palmetto Pinball Club is hosting a charity tournament to benefit Project Pinball. Project Pinball raises money to donate pinball machines to Children’s Hospitals, and we’d like to raise money to donate a machine to a local Children’s Hospital.

The format will be a PAPA style tournament. Qualifying will be held all day on Saturday and we will be going all night into Sunday. It’s a pinball-athon, baby! Qualifying will consist of 5 tables (out of a bank of 9), and each ticket will cost $10. Play as many tickets as you like.

The tournament is IFPA sanctioned, and we’re gonna work really hard to get it to be a 20+ point tournament, so y’all come on out and play with us.

http://www.wltx.com/news/local/palmetto-pinball-club-hosts-tournament/262469568

Pinball Enthusiasts Find a Cause

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.