By Jon Maib
The staff of C4x4 enjoys getting involved in events that benefits others, so when we were asked if we could help out with the 2nd Annual Crawl for a Reason, we were excited to jump on the team. The Crawl for a Reason was designed to help raise money for the American Cancer Society. A member of one of our local Jeep clubs put together the 1st annual Crawl last year with the help of other members and they were able to raise around $2000 to donate to the American Cancer Society.

So this year, they were hoping they could top last year's donation. Preparations began and the word was sent out. The event organizer, Erin Williams, reached out to one of our local off-road parks (Barnwell Mountain) and asked about renting the entire park out for the event; the park was available but came at a price. Fortunately for the event, we had some awesome sponsors step up to cover the expenses, like Dodge City, McKinney!

With many sponsors behind us providing an abundance of raffle prizes, the staff got to the park early to put together event bags for those that had registered for the event and the plethora of raffle prizes so everyone could see the awesome stuff they could win.

But before raffle, it was time to hit the trails! Barnwell Mountain is a fantastic off-road location with trails for every type of off-roader. After a brief drivers meeting, groups began to gather and head out to the vast trail system at Barnwell. My wife and I brought 2 Jeeps with us, our Project Vulture and our TJ-7 that use to grace the pages of this magazine. We were fortunate to meet Davy Murphy who agreed to be a trail leader for our group of Jeeps (If you haven't read our story on Davy, check out "Given a Second Chance").

Davy, with his extremely built rig took our group through some great trails, even keeping in mind that some of the rigs in our group were not in the same class as his. The weather was perfect and the trails were a lot of fun.

After wheeling all day, it was then time to check out the raffle prizes and the vendor/sponsors that came to setup and show off their products like Zero Limits Offroad with their sweet custom overlanding trailers and JTops USA, with their cool line up of shade tops, tonneau covers, and trail door skins. It was then time to raffle off all the cool products and gift certificates that our generous sponsors gave. Raffles are always fun and it's cool to see participants get excited about the products.

The Crawl for a reason was able to beat out it's last year donation of $2000. This year, we were able to raise approximately $13,900 to donate to the American Cancer Society! Can you say WOW! We want to thank our sponsors, participants and those that put so much time in to help out with such a worthy cause! If you are in the Texas area, be sure and keep an eye out for the 3rd Annual Crawl for a Reason next year!

We want to thank the following sponsors for all their help with this year's Crawl for a Reason!