The week after Carlton Hickman, CTO & Co-Founder of CPX Interactive, had finished the nine day, 3500 mile journey of Fireball Run, he knew that he wanted to donate his team’s car to a good cause. Hickman participated in the race with Tony Pascal, Graphic Designer at CPX, and Sean Beymolla, CPX VP of Traffic and Optimization. Fireball Run is a cross country road race to raise awareness for missing children in partnership with the Child Rescue Network. Each team is assigned a missing child, given a full color decal to put on their car, and hundreds of flyers to hand out along the way. The team’s race car was a special edition Dodge Charger that they outfitted especially for the race.

When Hickman wanted to donate the car for auction, he decided to further support the beneficiary of Fireball Run, the Child Rescue Network (CRN). Jeff Griesemer, President & CEO of CRN, traveled to the CPX headquarters in Westbury, NY to accept Hickman’s donation. Griesemer and Hickman discussed the importance of promoting awareness about missing children, and how CPX and CRN can work together to further these efforts.

The partnership between Fireball Run and CRN began when J. Sanchez, Organizer and Founder of Fireball Run, and fellow board member for the Orlando Chamber of Commerce, spoke with Griesemer about his initial ideas for a cross country race. Initially, CRN was simply going to be a beneficiary, but Griesemer realized just how much they could utilize the cars and the teams to get information out. It was Sanchez who later connected Griesemer with Hickman before last year’s race.

In addition to Fireball Run, CRN holds safety seminars and awareness presentations for parents, as well as assisting with investigations on cases. Griesemer feels that people are generally unaware of the number of kidnappings that occur in our country on a daily basis. He shared these statistics: over 2000 children are reported missing every day in this country; there are over 500 parental abductions every day; and non-family members are abducting kids 150 times a day.

The car donated by CPX will be raffled at several events near the CRN headquarters in Orlando, FL. All proceeds will go to CRN. CPX looks forward to continuing their relationship with CRN and helping to raise awareness nationwide. Please continue to check back here for more CRN/CPX raffle updates.

Tony Pascal (CPX Graphic Designer), Sean Beymolla (CPX VP of Traffic & Optimization), Carlton Hickman (CPX CTO) and Jeff Griesemer (President & CEO, CRN)

• Fireball Run
• Child Rescue Network
• Team CPX

To see more photos of Fireball Run and car donation day, visit our new Shutterfly photo page.

“With power, comes responsibility.”

CPXample™ is a catch-all philanthropic division of CPX Interactive, created to use the power of the Internet to support worthy causes, and to help them make the most of this power.

CEO and Founder, Mike Seiman, sums it up best this way, “The original company that we founded, and that became CPX Interactive, was called B.U.D.S., for ‘Brothers Unda Da Skin’, in order to reflect our shared belief in the ideals of equality and unity… and we are thrilled to be in a position to put teeth behind those ideals.”

Our Causes:

Over the past two years, CPX Interactive has been involved with several philanthropic endeavors. In October 2007, CPXample™ supported SaveDarfur.org by donating 50,000,000 impressions across its network, driving traffic to a page where visitors could send e-mail messages to world leaders, expressing their outrage toward the atrocities and genocide in The Sudan.

A couple months later, in December of 2007, CPXample™ developed a new series of animated ads and delivered them across the CPX network (50,000,000 impressions) to assist LiveEarth.org in expanding its database of concerned visitors.

In anticipation of the 2008 presidential election, CPX Interactive created and promoted an unparalleled campaign to “get out the vote.” In partnership with Russell Simmons’ Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN), CPX developed the “Vote For It! ’08” campaign. CPX worked with celebrities including LL Cool J, Snoop Dogg, George Lucas, TI and Ciara (for a full list visit www.voteforit08.org) to create a powerful video to compel America’s youth to exercise their right to vote. The video is featured on www.voteforit08.org, a website created for the project, which also provided a link to voter registration info, plus photos and event information.

On July 9, 2008, CPX and HSAN held a video launch party at Room Service in New York City. Many of the celebrities featured in the “Vote For It! ‘08” campaign were on hand to watch the video premiere and celebrate with the CPX staff.

For nine days in September and October, a team of CPX execs trekked across the country as part of the 2008 Fireball Run. The CPX Interactive team included: Carlton Hickman, CTO and Founder, Tony Pascal, Graphic Designer, and Shaun Beymolla, VP of Traffic & Optimization.  They were one of 100 teams to take part in this 3500 mile transcontinental rally to support the Child Rescue Network.

Each team was assigned a different missing child, with the mission of creating as much awareness as possible throughout their journey. Carlton, Tony, and Shaun were armed with posters, and their 2008 Special Edition “Superbee” Dodge Charger was covered with a full color decal of the missing child. According to the Child Rescue Network, twenty four children have since been rescued and reunited with their families and guardians. The rally was a success, and the CPX Interactive team came away from the Fireball Run with 3^rd place!

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