PAST YEARS
THE STORY
John Breen was a lifelong pinball player, a resident of Waynesboro, a member of Dominion Pinball League and regular at Decades Arcade. He found out in January 2021 that he had terminal cancer. In his last few months, John contacted Arcade Manager Lindsey and Dominion Pinball League Director Dan, asking us to keep his name alive with a charity pinball tournament. We were honored to do so.
THE CHARITY
The Ronald McDonald House of Charlottesville provides affordable housing, community resources & meals for families of children undergoing treatment at the University of Virginia Health System. With stays ranging from one night to multiple months, their always-open facility offers a home-away-from-home with 19 rooms, 4 kitchens, laundry facilities and a recreational area.
Decades Arcade placed our pinball machine “Comet” in the Ronald McDonald House of Charlottesville in John’s memory for the benefit of the patients staying there in 2023, in partnership with Project Pinball who also placed the pinball machine “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” John loved kids and talked about how they were much braver than him – he said had been blessed to live a full life, and his wish was to help them face hard diagnoses and treatments via his love of pinball. One of the pinball machines will go into the RMHC’s new isolation unit for immunocompromised children while the other stays in the Rec Room used by all who stay at RMHC. Both machines are maintained by Decades & DPL technicians.