World champs to host car wash, pop up

Wendy Alexander/The Madera Tribune

Madtown Robotics students, Areli Venegas, Xavier Sifuentes, left, and Alexiah Gonzalez, Fabi Xi, center right, and Francisco Hernandez wash the truck of advisor Vern Velmonte in preparation for Saturday’s car wash fundraiser to raise money for the program.

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MadTown Robotics is heading to the World Championships to defend its championship from 2019.

However, the club has to raise more than $10,000 to attend the championships April 19-23 in Houston, Texas.

MadTown Robotics will host a car wash and vendor pop up today from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. at Les Schwab Tire Center (2140 W. Kennedy Street).

MadTown Robotics’ Daniella Fernandez-Ortiz said there will be about 20 vendors at the event.

“We want to support a lot of our small vendors,” she said. “We have people that will sell plant arrangements, snacks, candies, clothing lines and jewelry. We have a lot of different businesses that will be there.”

In addition, the vendors wanted to support the team and are putting together gift baskets the team will be raffling off.

“People can come to the event and be a part of it,” Fernandez-Ortiz said. “Hopefully, they all can walk away with something.”

Raffle tickets are 10 for $10 or 25 for $20 and must be present to win. Raffle tickets will be sold from 1:30-2:30 p.m. and the winners will be announced at 2:45 p.m.

“We need raise about $10,000 not from just the car wash and pop up,” Fernandez-Ortiz said. “We have a GoFundMe page (Team 1323 travel to World Championships) set up as well.”