The Barstool Fund - Holly Lanes Bowling Center
Up next: Holly Lanes Bowling Center (Fenton, MI)
Holly Lanes is located in Holly, Michigan, serving all neighboring communities. They offer 26 lanes of bowling featuring automatic scoring, bumper bowling, glow bowling, and great party packages including bowling, pizza and more.
Reader Email
I grew up in bowling, I started bowling when I was 4 years old, when I was 11 I walked into my local bowling alley and asked for a job, they were like how old are you, I said 11. By the time I was 16 I was the manager, and by the time I was 21 I was part owner. 9 Years ago the local bowling center in my town was in desperate need of a bulldozer. I convinced my wife that it could be an amazing place. I swiped my own credit cards at times through our machines just to make sure my people got paid, but I pride myself in the fact my kids never missed a meal, and Ive never missed payroll. I have invested my life, missed birthdays, holidays, weekends, trying to build what I believe is a SOLID community based business, and we were really making it work. COVID and our Gov Whitmer literally have killed us. We have only been able to open for 66 days in all of 2020. I am down to about 30 days left before all the rest of my savings is gone. The bank has in no uncertain terms told me they will foreclose on my business and my home. I had some choice words as I am very well respected in my community. We have been doing fundraising events like I dressed up as santa so kids and pets could drive through and see santa, that paid the electric bill, I was slinging drinks on the side of the road in the cold, that paid the rent and my staff. Im just running out of time. I took the EIDL loan in hopes it would bridge the gap. But they kept us closed so long and the lenders saw there was money in the bank they kept taking it. I tried to tell them that if they take it all there will be nothing left. Crazy we are right in the spot I told them we would be. We are doing fundraisers weekly but there is only so much our small community can give, they don't have that much money. Its a very hard thing to do to ask and ask and ask. I am a very proud father of 5 boys, 2 have autism, so are days are filled with therapy, online schooling and tying to give them some kind of normalcy. The one thing I always teach them is they cannot ever give up, no matter how hard things get. So on the outside dad is strong, but on the inside, the numbers have gone from black to red, and our state and our gov has failed. So here I am, hoping I might be one of the lucky few. I can assure you that we will take care of our staff and our place, and whatever is left I will gladly pay forward to our community. I drive a shitty car now and I will drive a shitty car after. This is not for me. This is for the people who rely on me to pay their bills, this is for the guy who lost his wife and the only fun thing he gets to do is bowl on thursdays, this is for the little league team I sponsor even when there was no money left. I need you prez, i promise, you won't be disappointed in us.
