CHESHIRE, Conn. — Bozzuto’s here, in concert with its IGA Hometown Wheels program, and the Hometown Foundation, raised $165,000 for the Special Olympics of Connecticut Sunday via its Dream Ride motorcycle event—$65,000 more than was raised by the event last year.

Bozzuto’s improved the fund-raising ability of the event last year by supporting it with ecommerce technologies developed for its retailer conferences.

Bozzuto’s completed a trade show at the Foxwoods resort in Connecticut last week and “re-tooled” 100 devices from the show to be used as kiosks and POS equipment for the Dream Ride event, said John Keeley, vice president of information systems for Bozzuto's.

Bozzuto’s also provided GPS phones for riders and background map tracking software that helped the state police to monitor riders’ progress and location. In addition, riders were emailed a bar-coded confirmation for registering and instructions to print it out and bring it to the event.

“About 40% [did that] so the check in per-person only took 20 to 30 seconds,” Keeley said. “The lines flowed great.” This year, the event expanded from engaging Connecticut-only motorcyclists to riders from several neighboring states.

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