Partnerships

MainStreet in the community

MainStreet and our schools

Three school districts. Three wrapped trucks. A set of perpetual trophies for the rivalry down US‑73 — and a truck bed we intend to fill and empty all year long.

Why a car dealership is at your kid’s game

MainStreet Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM sits at 555 N Main St in Lansing, Kansas, and almost everybody who works here lives inside twenty minutes of the building. Our kids go to these schools. Our neighbors coach these teams. When the band plays at halftime, somebody on our sales floor is usually in the stands with a cowbell.

So we stopped writing checks and calling it community involvement. Instead we built something we have to actually show up for: three district trucks, a set of trophies that changes hands every year, and an open truck bed at every event we can get to. It is harder than a check. It is also a lot more fun.

Here is what the program covers, and how you can be part of it.

The three districts

Each district has its own wrapped Ram 1500, its own QR code, and its own discount page for families. Students, staff, teachers, coaches, bus drivers, alumni and neighbors all qualify — and our General Manager, Shane Varner, calls every person who asks about it himself.

The Eisenhower Trophies and Cups

Leavenworth and Lansing have been playing each other for as long as anybody around here can remember, and until now the only thing on the line was bragging rights until the next meeting. Starting this season, there is hardware.

Every sport where the two schools meet gets its own perpetual trophy or cup. Win it, and it goes home with you — into your trophy case, in your gym, in front of your students — until the next time the two schools play. Then you defend it or you hand it over. The names of the winning schools go on the base, year after year, so that in twenty years a kid can walk up to it and find the season their mom won it.

We named them for Dwight D. Eisenhower because he is the rare figure both towns can claim without argument. He was a Kansas kid out of Abilene, and in 1926 he graduated first in his class of 245 officers at the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth — the year that turned a middling major into the officer the Army kept promoting. Leavenworth is where he proved it. Lansing is the next town down the road. That felt like the right name to put on something two schools have to keep taking from each other.

MainStreet funds the trophies and the engraving. The schools decide the schedule, the rules and who holds what. We hand them over at the buzzer and get out of the way.

The trucks work the games

The wrapped trucks are not parade floats. They are at the events — football and soccer in the fall, basketball and wrestling in the winter, baseball, softball and track in the spring, plus the concerts, the tournaments and the nights nobody shows up to but the parents.

The tailgate is down and the bed is open. Whatever the school has told us it needs that month, that is what goes in the bed. Classroom supplies. Notebooks, folders, pencils, glue sticks, dry erase markers, copy paper. Hygiene items and snacks for the counselors’ closets, which run empty faster than anything else in a school building. Athletic tape and water bottles. If a teacher can use it and a district budget will not cover it, it belongs in that truck bed.

You do not need to buy anything special or fill out anything. Walk it over on your way in, drop it in the bed, go watch the game. What comes in that night goes to that school — not into a general fund, not split three ways. Lions donations stay with Lansing. Pioneer donations stay with Leavenworth. Bobcat donations stay with Basehor-Linwood.

Can’t make a game? The bed of whichever truck is parked out front at 555 N Main St in Lansing works exactly the same way during business hours.

December: filling the beds for Children’s Mercy

When the fall sports seasons end, the trucks change jobs. Through December, every bed is collecting toys for the kids at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City — the children who are going to spend part of their Christmas in a hospital room instead of a living room.

Children’s Mercy has firm rules about what it can accept, and they exist for good reasons — infection control, allergies, and kids of every background sharing the same floor. Please read these before you shop:

• New only, in the original packaging, with tags still on. Nothing used, nothing homemade, nothing that has been sitting out on display.
• Do not wrap it. Wrapped gifts cannot be accepted — staff have to see what is inside. Leave the paper at home.
• No toy weapons of any kind, including nerf guns, swords, light sabers and bows and arrows.
• Nothing tied to a specific religion or religious holiday. The floors serve every family.
• Non-toxic and latex-free, and free of strong odors.

Teenagers get forgotten in toy drives every single year, so if you are stuck: gift cards, headphones, art supplies, sealed card games and craft kits all land well with the 13-and-up crowd.

We sort, box and deliver everything the beds collect. If your school, team, business or church wants to run a collection of its own and have us pick it up, call the dealership and we will come get it.

How to get involved

• Bring something to a game. Find the wrapped truck, drop it in the bed, keep walking.
• Drop off at the dealership. 555 N Main St, Lansing, KS 66043, during sales hours.
• Claim your school discount. Lions, Pioneers, Bobcats.
• Run a drive of your own. Call us and we will pick it up.
• Partner with us. If your school, league or booster club wants a truck at your event, ask.

MainStreet Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM of Lansing
555 N Main St, Lansing, KS 66043
Sales: 913-675-2776 — Mon-Thu 8:00am-7:00pm, Fri-Sat 8:00am-6:00pm, Sun closed

Go Lions. Go Pioneers. Go Bobcats.

— Shane Varner & the team at MainStreet Chrysler Dodge Jeep RAM of Lansing