Getting Involved ~ Giving Back ~ Having Fun ~ Building Community See What This Celebration is Really All About!
The directors of Cruisin' The Boulevard graciously thank Andrew Martin, for donating his time to design, film and produce this video.
Behind The Scenes
• 100% volunteer, there are only 15 members of Cruisin’ The Boulevard who are responsible for directing and producing Petaluma’s Salute to American Graffiti, however several hundred people donate over 5000 volunteer hours throughout the course of the year to CTB.
• We raise all of the money necessary to fund the costs of operating our Corporation, maintaining our website and our American Graffiti Cop Car and producing each Salute, including fees paid to the City of Petaluma for police and support services.
• Our website, www.americangraffiti.net, is the Internet’s American Graffiti authority and is consistently at or near the top of every major search engine including Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask. It is continually updated and receives thousands of hits annually.
• Our American Graffiti Cop Car has become an ambassador for Petaluma! Throughout the year, we take it to other cities to promote Petaluma and our Salute Celebration. In 2009, we participated in the American Graffiti show at Hot August Nights in Reno and events in Manteca/Modesto, Vallejo, Novato, Willits, Gualala, Sebastopol, Sonoma and others.
• Our American Graffiti Salute brings more people from around the world into Petaluma than any other event. Since 2006, our inaugural year, we estimate more than 60,000 have visited from across the USA and from as far away as New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Austria, Sweden, England, Canada, and others. Classic car owners who have or will this year be bringing their cars are from Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Canada and, of course, from all over California.
• We designed and printed a full-color American Graffiti/Visit Petaluma brochure that promotes Petaluma and shows where all of the memorable scenes were filmed. This is distributed to motels/hotels and is also given out at events, car shows and parades in other cities. It is also sent with merchandise orders.
• We are the only Petaluma organization and probably one of the few in Sonoma County that for each annual Celebration, produces a very high quality, full-color program (up to 60 pages or more) that is both sold and given away at other events and shows.
• In 2008, we received the top community service award from a major national corporation and as a result were featured in several national automobile magazines. In that same year, our Salute Celebration was featured in a multi-page pictorial in Custom Classic Trucks, an internationally distributed magazine.
• In just four years, we have reinvested over $80.000 back into Petaluma including AEDs for all Petaluma Police Cars, City Hall and four Petaluma High Schools; an electric gurney for the Petaluma Fire Department; bicycle helmets for children from families with undermet needs; and financial grants to Project Graduation, Meals on Wheels, Christmas Cheer and Henry Travers’s Scholarships to graduating high school students.
