Volunteers pack more than 10,000 swag bags for Cruisin’ The Coast

Cruisin’ the Coast is just around the corner, but the pre-game partying has already begun for the nation’s number one car show, according to USA Today, that is. Our News 25 cameras were at the D’Iberville Civic Center for the Cruisin’ The Coast packing party.

“We’ve got quite an event going on here in D’Iberville and behind us as you see a lot of volunteers are helping make Cruisin’ the Coast work,” said Woody Bailey, executive director of the event.

Dozens of volunteers, host car clubs and Cruisin’ staff were hard at work making thousands of swag bags for registrants in this year’s Cruisin’ The Coast event.

“Cruisin The Coast starts at packing parties for us in the office and all of our volunteers,” said Craig Crisoli, the registration director. “We have 12 different car clubs from the Gulf Coast representative that provided all the yellow shirts volunteers you see during the Cruisin event. We’ve got about 200 of the 700 volunteers here and they’re bagging 10,000 bags.”

“This is our first get together for Cruisin’ The Coast. This is the bag stuffing,” said volunteer James Bullard Jr. “These guys are loading what’s one truck that’s gonna have 10,0o0 goodie bags for our visitors coming in.”

Betty Wells of Magnolia Classic Cruisers says she’s been volunteering close to 20 years now.

“We do packing the party every year which is wonderful,” Wells said. “We always look forward to everybody coming in and looking at the beautiful cars and seeing where they’re from and their stories behind their cars.”

It’s one of the best events to learn about the history of classic rides.

“For us, Cruisin’ the Coast is like our Christmas week,” said volunteer James Bullard Jr. “It’s like us celebrating cars. So we get together and it’s just a great time. We’re lucky this year because kids will be out of school so we’ll get to have more youngsters around to see what their grandfathers and great grandfathers did when they were young.”

If you want to volunteer for Cruisin’ The Coast, you can still sign up.

“It’s a beautiful thing to be involved in. We’re looking for volunteers all the time. So if you want to do it just get in touch with somebody and join us.”