Hello, and welcome! If you’re a veteran of our friendly blog here at eTags, it’s good to see you again. If you’re new to our ongoing series of all things automotive related, we bid you a warm welcome. We love our readers and are equally happy to connect with both the seasoned folks and the newbies. For our regulars, we’re back with another Florida Specialty Plate Spotlight. For those who’ve just tiptoed in for the first time, let us explain what this series is.
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The State of Florida offers more than one hundred different license plates in addition to the standard plate you’d get by just moseying on into your local DMV when it’s time to register a new car. These alternative plates all come with varying designs and motifs, and include anything from wildlife preservation to collegiate support, from sports teams to Disney themes, from art conservation to abuse prevention.
There are a LOT of designs and causes from which you can cast your choice.
There are two fabulous benefits of Specialty Plates. First, opting for a Specialty Plate allows you to show a bit of flare on your vehicle (Office Space, anyone?!) with minimal effort. For example, if you really love the Miami Dolphins, instead of paying for a spray-painted mural on the side of your ride depicting the team’s logo, you could instead purchase a Dolphins Specialty Plate and display your fandom this way. Cheaper, easier, and far less of a commitment, right?
The second benefit of choosing a Specialty Plate is that regardless of whichever style you choose, you will be supporting one cause or another. You see, each plate is connected to a charity, foundation, or organization, and so each time a Specialty Plate is purchased, a significant portion of the funds get directed towards a worthy cause. So without doing much but picking a theme that speaks to you, you are automatically donating the various programs behind the design.
Today’s Specialty Plate under the Spotlight is: Marine Corps. And here’s how your purchase acts as not only a display of support, but with actual monetary contributions and benefits. For every Marine Corps Specialty Plate ordered, your fee gets directed as follows:
The first $50,000 amassed each year goes straight to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, Inc. This foundation is the nation’s oldest and largest provider of need-based scholarships to military children. The foundation uses all fees to fund scholarships and assist Marine Corps Junior ROTC and Young Marine programs in the state of Florida.
To get an idea of just how much funding has been distributed by the Foundation, and how it impacts lives – not just in Florida, but across the country – here are some rather eye-opening numbers:
- $200 million in scholarships awarded in the past 61 years
- $10.8 million in scholarship support to Marine families this year alone
- 48% of scholarship recipients are the first to graduate college, as compared to 33% nationally
- 44 is the average GPA of scholarship recipients, as compared to 3.15 nationally
- 91% of scholarship recipients graduate college as compared to 54% nationally
- 67% of scholarship recipients graduate with little to no debt, as compared to 33% nationally
Residents in all 50 states are eligible for the Foundation scholarships, and indeed, are awarded across the country each year.
This is in addition to 18 scholarships that are awarded overseas. And after the first $50,000 of funds are distributed, the remaining funds are allocated in two directions.
35% of proceeds are deposited in the State Homes for Veterans Trust Fund. This Trust is used specifically for the purpose of constructing, operating, and maintaining nursing home, domiciliary, and adult day care facilities. State Veterans Homes are owned, operated, and managed by state governments, and date back to the post-Civil War era. Their goal is to provide shelter and care to elderly and disabled veterans. State Homes for Veterans can be found in all 50 states.
The remaining 65% is directed back to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, Inc.
The foundation also sees support from a number of high-profile Corporate Champions, including:
- American Airlines
- Boeing
- FedEx
- Bank of America
- Bloomberg Philanthropies
- Google Cloud
- PNC Bank
- Toyota
But what’s really nice about opting for a Marine Corps Specialty Plate is that you basically ride with these high-flyers in terms of contributing to a worthy cause, while not having to do much at all. Upgrading to a Specialty Plate is really easy. Especially with eTags to help you with every step.
Here’s how the Specialty Plate program works: at any time in your registration period (yes, Any time) you can opt to replace your plate – be it standard design, or a different Specialty Plate – with a Marine Corps plate. This means that it does not matter if you have just bought a vehicle and are registering it for the first time, whether you’re up for your registration renewal, or if you just woke up this morning with a hankering for a theme, a motto, a cause, a bit of flair.
It’s as easy as heading over to our site, choosing Florida as your state from our drop-down menu, and picking the Specialty Plate option.
Oh, and did we mention that you can also personalize your Specialty Plate? Well, you can. So, say your son or your aunt or your fourth cousin was a Marine, and you’re like really proud of that person. You could choose to put their name, their initials, their birthdate on your plate as your personalization. As long as the DMV approves of your letter/number combo, you’re good to go.
So this is our Florida Specialty Plate Spotlight for this week, and while we say this every time, we think it’s a really good one. Any organization that aims to help folks in need will always get our vote. And if we can lend a friendly hand somehow, somewhere along the line, we are so ready to do just that. Because as you may already know: at eTags, we’re here to help!
