The Lane truck was purchased on January 16th of 2012 in St. Peters Missouri at Lou Fusz Chevrolet. I went there to only look at black avalanches, but after spending the whole day deciding, I chose the white 2011 Avalanche. Many months of driving it, I truly fell in love with it. It drives like nothing I've ever driven before and sitting up high, I can see everything! One night in September I was s
itting with family looking at my phone on facebook. I came across a post someone had commented on that had me click to find out more. It was a post made by a cancer mom by the name Angie Goodwin. She made a post on her sons page that hit me like no other post i had read, She was asking God to Please not let her son suffer like this. That it was killing her to see him hurt. I was so emotional over this post that i broke down crying in front of my family. The page was called "Prayers for Lane Goodwin". I didn't know in that moment that my life would change forever. I spent most of the night reading post after post that his mom had fullheartedly written telling everyone about how her 13yr old son was fighting a horrible cancer called Rhabdomyosarcoma. Clicking on picture after picture, I noticed that in most every picture he was wearing St. Louis Cardinals shirts and hats... I thought "ohh no, he lives close to me", but after looking into the story more, i found out he lived in Kentucky.... Kentucky??? What kiddo would sport so much "red" and not even live close? Later we found out that he had always just loved the St. His parents never knew why, he just always did. Well that was it... I was connected from that min. I too am a huge Cardinal fan. Born and raised in the St. Louis area, I had to do something. I spent days coming up with ideas on just what to do. The Cardinal stadium is 40min away from my house. I called in some help from some great friends and we started making posters. Lane's whole thing was "THUMBS UP".. Thumbs Up because "I got this" Lane would say. Our posters were done right, and made out of love. We had an amazing artist by the name of Andrew draw up most every poster. We set up an event page to get friends to join us at Busch Stadium for a photo shoot. The idea was to get a photo album put together to send to Lane with all of us giving him a Thumbs Up. There was about 10 of us on that first day. There wasn't a game, so the stadium was kinda empty. We still asked people walking by if they wanted to join us in a pic for a lil boy battling cancer. And after many people joined us, It got us very excited. We knew that there was a game the next day, and we thought "how cool would it be if we came back for more pictures with a lot of Cardinals fans dressed in red?"... We went back the next day... So many people standing around, we would just walk up and tell them about Lane and let them know what we were doing. Everyone wanted in our pic. It was so awesome. I would yell out "We are doing Thumbs Up pictures for a 13yr old boy from Kentucky that has cancer and Loves the St. Louis Cardinals". And people were waiting to join with a smile on their face. We were able to fit 50+ people in just one pic at one time. That called for a loud explanation of what we were doing, and I was LOUD!! Louis Loved our idea, and it was such a great feeling. Here is where it all started to explode. A reporter from St. Louis Fox2 news walked up to me and asked me what my posters were for. His name is Andy Banker, and his questions went from happy go lucky to serious and emotional. Once he found out what was going on, I could tell he really thought this was a story to be told. So the camera guy started filming. That night, we were on the news and in that interview, St. Louis was touched. Andy Banker put so much emotion in all his wording that The St. Louis Cardinals decided to do a Photoshoot with all the employees and Fredbird on the feild. They put "THUMBS UP FOR LANE" on every screen at the stadium. Took pictures of that, the Cards announcer, the owner, and Carpenter giving Lane a "Thumbs Up". They then emailed me all the pictures for me to print out and I put the best ones in 8x10's and printed off the rest to add to our collection that we were putting together from our own photoshoot. Since the news posted the video on their page, we shared it on facebook and not knowing the Goodwin's (yet), I sent Angie and George a message on Facebook asking them if we could deliver the photos in person. George responded with many thank you's and also gave me his address. So we planned a meeting on October 13th 2012. That morning would be the birth of The Lane Truck. We took window paint sticks that you would use on your car windows and started the process. It took a few hours, but with Andrew painting on the truck, it started looking so good. Thumbs Up for Lane Goodwin can be seen over 100ft away. The Fredbird giving a Thumbs Up is the first thing most notice off the bat. Both sides say the same phrases and the STL symbol on the hood looks perfect. If driving in front of The Lane Truck, looking out your rearview mirror you can read Lane because its written in reverse. Prayers, and Cancer Bites are a few of the words chosen. It also says "13yrs old"... That was what had most people emotional over. His age.... A child.... Well we finished it up, and headed to Kentucky. On the way we recieved so many Thumbs Up. One old man in his small truck looked over at me in passing. I watched him read the truck and the look on his face was one I wont forget. He took his hand and did the Christian Cross from his forehead down and across his chest. That man didnt even know Lane, but in that minute you knew that he said a prayer for a little boy that he didn't even know. It was awesome. Driving up to the Goodwin home I knew it was going to be life changing, but I didnt know that their driveway would be one that The Lane Truck would be driving up many more times.
