Bison Gearmotor Plays Pivotal Role in Raising Funds for Charity

Windmill playhouse raises $10,000 at auction to help rehabilitate low-income and elderly housing

 

An elaborate playhouse featuring a Bison gearmotor powered windmill sold for $10,000 at auction, with one hundred percent of the proceeds used to provide free home repair services for the elderly and low-income homeowners in the San Francisco Bay Area. The "Molina of La Mancha" playhouse was designed by Topos Architects of Palo Alto, California, who selected a Bison Gear gearmotor to power the windmill on still days. The gearmotor Bison donated to the project is from the VWDIR23 series of right angle, variable speed drives.

The Don Quixote-inspired windmill was sold at the Dreams Happen auction which is the primary fundraiser for the Rebuilding Together Peninsula charity that provides free home repair services for those in need. The primary recipients of their services are senior citizens, single parents, grandparents raising grandkids, the disabled, low-income families with children, veterans, children caring for ailing parents and the sick or poor in health.  

 

"Bison Gear is always happy to support such worthy causes with product donations," said Sylvia Wetzel, Bison Gear chief learning officer and president of BisonCares. "After all, we're soliciting product donations for the silent auction portion of our 4th Annual Jeffrey Bullock Memorial Golf Tournament which benefits the Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation and Lazarus House serving the homeless." 

"Although we sell gearmotors for special applications in the wind power industry and we also make permanent magnet dc motors that can be used as very small generators, I must say this is an application we did not anticipate," said John Morehead, who is Bison Gear's vice president strategic planning and marketing. "It's only one gearmotor, but the satisfaction everyone at Bison Gear received knowing the good work that will be done by Rebuilding Together Peninsula is as great as having sold thousands to an OEM."