Jay Cloutier figures his group managed to fulfill 1,000 requests at the pandemic height, but with more people going back to work, he has decided to put the Windsor Birthday Cruises on hold indefinitely.
"When things started to open up, people started to get busy -- a lot of the requests just started dying down a little bit," said founder Jay Cloutier.
At the height of it, Cloutier had up to 90 drivers volunteering to drive past the homes of those requesting a birthday cruise. It brought cheer to those celebrating at a time when social interaction was strongly discouraged.
The demand for the service was robust. Cloutier figured the group could only fulfill a fifth of the requests made on its website and Facebook page.
Cloutier started it in early April, after attending a cruise put on by another group.
"There was a post on Windsor Car Spotters of a kid that asked for people to come by and say happy birthday, and I missed it," he recalled. "The next day, there was another post put up by another child, and it was close to me. I was like, well, now I could probably go do that."
The group took donations to cover their costs. There is some cash leftover, and Cloutier plans to give it to the Canadian Mental Health Association.
If there is a second wave of COVID-19 and another shutdown, he said he would pick up where he left off.
"Oh, 100 per cent," he said. "That's why I don't want to delete the [Facebook or web] page or any of that, because if, heaven forbid it does, then that page is there."
