Nancy Matter Continues Philanthropic Efforts for United States Soldiers and Children with DIPG Through Racer’s Igniting Hope

DALLAS, TX — As the 2021 Racing Season is about to kick off, Nancy Matter Racing has been behind the scenes preparing for her team’s charity efforts for American Valor Foundation (Formerly Guardians For Heroes) and her own endeavor, Racer’s Igniting Hope.

Matter, whose team has raised extensive awareness and donations to Guardian For Heroes, now American Valor Foundation, since 2015, is always looking to do more.  The main criteria was to blend the world of racing, creativity and charity efforts for expansion to more families.  Matter ultimately came up with repurposing used racing spark plugs into color coded key chains with and without bling on them and named her new effort, Racer’s Igniting Hope.

Once the word got out, Racer’s and Spark Plug Manufacturer’s donated their used and new spark plugs from all over the United States.   Team’s from NHRA, Lucas Oil Series, PDRA, Outlaw Fuel Altereds, Funny Car Chaos, Pro Mods, Sportsman, No prep, Motorcycles, even from some private air planes.

“In our first year of collecting, preparing and converting to key chains, there was quite a learning curve” noted Matter “add that together with trying to build and campaign a new to us NHRA Heritage Legal Nostalgia Fuel Car, manage and facilitate our diesel repair shop and put together the inner workings of RIH, we didn’t raise as much awareness as I had hoped in that first year.   However,

We were able to purchase a Service Dog for a Veteran at the end of the year,  and it was a feel good success for that first year effort.”

Matter took a break to regroup and figure out how to really make this endeavor work in 2019 and in 2020 came up with a different approach.   Between a portion of the Team’s merchandise sales and receiving donations for key chain spark plugs, Matter raised almost $8,000.00 that she divided up between American Valor and a Family in need. Arianna, who is a young 6 year old little girl will ultimately gain her wings from DIPG which is 99% incurable at this time.   Matter was successful in paying the families rent for 3 months, their utilities for the same amount of time, a $450.00 Food Gift Card at Winco and a nice family dinner at Texas Road House, Arianna’s Favorite Restaurant in November 2020 at the conclusion of the Racing Season.

Matter’s hope for this year is that they can raise $20,000 and help others even more.   Currently, these repurposed keychains are primarily available at the track and will remain donation only.    Matter keeps all receipts and shares them regularly on social media so that those who donate can see exactly where all of the funds collected are distributed.  If anyone would like to donate their used spark plugs or donate to receive a key chain in the mail,  please send a private message to the Racer’s Igniting Hope Facebook Page.