Summitt Foundation needs help to sell 1,000 license plates
Calling 205 devoted Pat Summitt fans, Lady Vols devotees and Alzheimer’s treatment advocates. Anyone need or want a new Tennessee license plate? Then the Pat Summitt Foundation needs you and soon.
The foundation has until June 30 to pre-sell 1,000 custom Tennessee license plates. A total of 795 have been ordered so far. But if orders don’t hit 1,000 or more by then, no plates will be produced. Plate ordering information is online at patsummitt.org/pat_summitt_foundation_license_plate.aspx.
“I think sometimes people tend to think, ‘Oh June, they have plenty of time.’ But our deadline is here, and if we don’t hit it this year we don’t get another opportunity like this,” Foundation Director of Public Relations Sunny Biden said.
The plates will include the foundation logo and a photo of Summitt; a final design will be done if the campaign is successful. Each Pat Summitt Foundation plate costs $35 plus a credit card processing fee and whatever individual county clerk costs are for the plate owner’s residence. The foundation will receive $15.38 of each plate’s cost.
Summitt retired from coaching at age 59 because of a diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s. The legendary University of Tennessee women’s basketball coach — whose teams won eight national championships — died June 28, 2016, at age 64 from complications of the disease.
Biden said the Tennessee Department of Revenue estimates plates will arrive at county clerks’ offices four to six months after it gets the orders.
If the campaign reaches 1,000 orders, Biden said, the foundation will keep selling plates. Biden estimates the license plates would bring about $26,000 to the foundation. Each year, the foundation can count on its part of the plate costs as the plates are renewed, she said.
The foundation began the fundraiser in June 2016, before Summitt’s death. But when it was apparent 1,000 plates wouldn’t be ordered in a year, it got a one-year-only extension. Summitt established the foundation in November 2011, a few months after receiving her diagnosis. A fund of East Tennessee Foundation, the foundation awards grants to nonprofit groups that advance research for treatment and a cure, provides patient and caregiver support, and offers public education about Alzheimer’s disease.