{"id":19455,"date":"2025-09-30T16:28:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T23:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/?p=19455"},"modified":"2025-10-01T11:22:26","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T18:22:26","slug":"60-ton-plane-pull-fundraiser-held-for-special-olympics-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/?p=19455","title":{"rendered":"60-ton plane pull fundraiser held for Special Olympics athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Special Olympics Southern California kicked off their 13th annual plane pull fundraiser at the Long Beach Airport where over 24 teams of volunteers competed to see who could pull a 60-ton UPS cargo jet the fastest over 12 feet on Sept. 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event proceeds went to Southern California\u2019s Special Olympic athletes, helping the organization provide uniforms, equipment and training for their athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDifferent members of the community and individuals with special needs or disabilities, and so we are ones that carry the flame of Hope for these athletes, so they don’t have to pay a dime for any of the sports that they and get involved with\u201d Orange County Sheriff Deputy Ryan Watson, an alum of LBCC and chairman of the plane pull event said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the plane pull, food stalls, live music and a small Cessna plane children could band together to pull a short distance themselves were at the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a part of our community awareness, it keeps us in touch with the community,\u201d said team member for the Katten law firm Malinda Washington, who participated with her son and grandson, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Members of the Katten Law Group team work together to pull a plane Sept. 13 at the Long Beach Airport. (Jacyn King)<\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event supports \u201cover 25,000 athletes in 11 counties with 13 different sports\u201d according to Deputy Watson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The teams of participants ranged from aviation companies, law enforcement, healthcare companies, families and high school sports teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LA County Sheriff\u2019s Department\u2019s team, Twin Towers, had the fastest time of the event at 5.93 seconds, beating their first attempt time of 6.56 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Members of the LA County Sheriff’s Department team work together to pull a plane on Sept. 13 at the Long Beach Airport. (Daniel Quinones)<\/sub><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All teams received two attempts to move the plane, and the majority of the teams used their second chance to score a faster time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event had a variety of local and national sponsors including Microsoft, Katten, UPS and Kaiser Permanente.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fundraiser ended up raising $230,000 of their $275,000 goal.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn’t matter what shape or size you are, just give it a good try,\u201d Watson said. \u201cThe athletes have a saying I think is fantastic, \u2018Let me win. But if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.'”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Special Olympics Southern California kicked off their 13th annual plane pull fundraiser at the Long Beach Airport where over 24 teams of volunteers competed to see who could pull a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":19463,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6229],"tags":[3701,3694,48,3575,3576,29,1263,68,6344,4946,81],"class_list":["post-19455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lifestyle","tag-charity","tag-daniel","tag-fundraiser","tag-jacyn","tag-king","tag-lbcc","tag-lifestyle","tag-long-beach-city-college","tag-quinones","tag-special-olympics","tag-students"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Skgy-53N","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lbccviking.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Lifestyle_20250904_-SpecialOlympicsPlanePull_JKingDQuinones_20250916_0003_013-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19455"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19472,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19455\/revisions\/19472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}