Mark Curtis, Director of Grace for Vets, announced that an estimated 346,766 free carwashes were given away to veterans and active-duty personnel by 4,426 participating locations across four countries. This brings the total free carwashes provided by participating members of Grace For Vets to 2,679,743 since the organization was started in 2004 by Mike Mountz.

We are thrilled to see the participation grow each year, Curtis said. We gave away 12% more washes this year than in 2018. The overwhelming number of inquiries by vets on Monday crashed our website a couple of times during the day. It's clear that this has grown so much that we'll have to upgrade our support systems for 2020.

Curtis, who is also CEO of Splash Carwash, Inc., an operator of 21 locations in Connecticut and New York, has overseen Grace for Vets since 2014. We are always touched by the veterans who visit us on November 11th and the appreciation they have for this simple gesture of thanks we provide them. I hear stories country-wide of other operators who have similar experiences and have been participating in Grace for Vets for years.

Carwash operators find involving themselves with Grace for Vets a simple task with no cost to join. They can visit graceforvets.org and register their washes so that inquiring veterans can find their locations. Curtis hopes to grow the involvement to over 5000 participating washes in 2020 and provide over 400,000 washes to veterans and active-duty personnel.