Northwoods Reporter

When Preslie needed a helping hand, Henry Repeating Arms was there to lend one.

Preslie Mantsch of Iron River, Michigan, was 3 when diagnosed with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, a blood and bone marrow cancer.

“Preslie’s father, Thomas Mantsch, reached out to our company president, Anthony Imperato, after reading the story of a previous Guns For Great Causes campaign,” Henry Repeating Arms Communications Director Dan Clayton-Luce told Northwoods Reporter. “Immediately upon hearing of Preslie's story and the family struggle as a result of her diagnosis, Imperato offered to build 65 custom rifles to be sold and auctioned off to raise funds.”

Henry Repeating Arms produced and donated rifles that raised $47,660 for Preslie and her family. It is one of the 2020 campaigns under the company’s Guns for Great Causes program. For her, they manufactured “Prayers For Preslie” Edition Golden Boy Silver rifles.

The rifles were offered for $620 and sold out within a matter of hours.

“The first and last serial numbers in the series were put up for auction and pulled in an additional $6,525 and $2,075, respectively,” Clayton-Luce said.

The rifle, chambered in .22 S/L/LR, features a nickel-plated receiver cover, buttplate, and barrel band with a deeply blued steel octagon barrel, according to the company website.

“The genuine American walnut buttstock is engraved with an orange leukemia awareness ribbon in the middle of stylized butterfly wings, symbolizing hope and Preslie’s endurance,” it states. “Above the butterfly are the words, ‘Prayers For Preslie,’ in matching bright orange. Baron Engraving of Trumbull, Connecticut, donated the engraving work and hand-painted details. Each rifle in the series is marked with a unique serial number ranging from “PRESLIE01” to “PRESLIE65.”

Imperato said supporting Preslie was an easy call. Thomas Mantsch works for the local fire department and ambulance service.

“With Preslie’s father being a frontline medical worker in their community’s fire and ambulance departments, I just can’t imagine the struggle this family has been through so far this year,” he said in a release. “I want to personally thank everyone who chose to support this family with the purchase of a rifle, and I look forward to seeing little Preslie conquer her road to remission. We’re all rooting for her.”

Guns for Good Causes raises money through firearm donations for sick children, children’s hospitals, veterans’ organizations, shooting sports preservation and wildlife conservation efforts. In 2020 alone, it has raised more than $175,000 for families of sick children and presented a $52,500 check for the Shriners Children’s Hospitals.

Thomas Mantsch said Preslie faces two more years of treatments, but remains upbeat. However, the COVID-19 pandemic causes him additional concern.

“Preslie is a magical, kind-hearted, wonderful, smart and caring little girl. She has a fighting spirit, and I am praying that she beats this,” he said in a release. “It is nerve-wracking to be working so close to the coronavirus frontlines with a daughter that is immunocompromised because of her chemo. We’re taking every precaution to keep her safe, but it’s hard.”

Imperato said these campaigns become deeply personal to him and the company’s employees.

“It is heart-wrenching to think of what children like Preslie and their families have to go through when they get a diagnosis as serious as leukemia,” he said. “We get so personally invested into each of our Guns For Great Causes benefits as soon as we see the first photo of the kid’s smile, and we hope this goes a long way to helping the Mantsch family in these most challenging of times.”

Clayton-Luce said Henry Repeating Arms plans to continue helping families facing these challenges.

“Preslie's campaign was probably the final one for this year, but we already have another one in the works that we're looking to launch in spring of 2021 to benefit a 7-year-old boy with Duchenne muscular dystrophy,” he said. “All told, we have donated tens of thousands of rifles and raised millions of dollars for various organizations. This year, we have presented Shriners International with a check for more than $50,000 and we have raised just over $175,000 for the families of four sick children.”

He said company has committed to helping others since its inception.

“Henry Repeating Arms ‘Guns for Great Causes’ is a charitable component of the company that focuses on individual sick children’s cases, children’s hospitals, veterans’ organizations, and Second Amendment/shooting sports/wildlife conservation causes and organizations,” Clayton-Luce said. “While Henry has been contributing to organizations since its inception, the first official Guns For Great Causes campaign to benefit the family of an individual sick child was in 2014.”

These campaigns also share a message that needs to be heard, he said.

“All too often, gun owners and the firearms industry gets a black eye by the media. We started Guns For Great Causes as a way of giving back, of course, but also to show the world all of the good that our industry and gun owners can do,” Clayton-Luce said. “Every time we run a Guns For Great Causes campaign, we rely on our customers to purchase the donated firearms to raise money. The families that these firearms are benefitting are usually complete strangers to our customers, but they come through time and time again thanks to their seemingly unending generosity.”

Henry Repeating Arms was founded in 1996 by current company president Anthony Imperato and his late father, Lou. The company produces rifles and shotguns.

It’s named for Benjamin Tyler Henry (1821-1898), repeating rifle inventor, but has no direct ties to Henry or the New Haven Arms Company, which sold the original Henry rifle from 1862-64. Anthony Imperato secured the trademark to the Henry name in 1996.