The NNL (National Nameless Luminaries) West Expo is not just about “boys and their toys.” Die hard model car builders have looked forward to this event at the Santa Clara Convention Center every year for 16 years. This event is not about competition and awards. It’s about a lot of other things: seeing great looking model cars/hotrod cars, meeting old friends and finding new ones, swapping stories (some of them true). Most of all it’s about having fun. Kids can sign up for the “Make N’ Take” program and have a chance to build a model right there, then display it on the under 18 table and take it home. Vendors come from all over the country bringing great deals on new kits or rare old kits. And one can also sit-in on how-to seminars.
Many of the modelers began as children and moved on in life: marriage, military service, jobs and retirement. But through their lives their skills of patience, dexterity and imagination have continued to grow. Which is why they have come back to modeling.
However, to these modelers the most important work is helping injured veterans who have returned home from service. For eight years Santa Clara’s Steve Travis has collected snap-tite kits and donates them all year long to the 4 veterans hospitals in the Bay Area. This helps the veterans to improve their motor skills. Many vendors donate these kits but Steve also hopes for monetary donations to buy the hundreds of models needed each quarter. (for donation information email anita_steve@sbcglobal.net)
Roy Sorenson, starter of NNL-West 26 years ago, learned of the Wounded Warriors Program begun by the IPMS ( International Plastic Modeler’s Society, USA) many years ago. This program helps veterans who have returned home from service in Afghanistan and Iraq. They collect models and donations for this program locally and send them to the Wounded Warriors national center. For donations to this cause locally please contact www.roysorenson.com or nationally contact www.woundedwarriorsproject.org.
