When saving our sports, the buck starts here
Confucius said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a
single step, and a lot of people in San Benito County are stepping
up on behalf of our youth right now.
Gone are the days when we could assume that our children would
have ample opportunities to participate in school-sponsored (and
funded) extracurricular activities.
When saving our sports, the buck starts here
Confucius said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and a lot of people in San Benito County are stepping up on behalf of our youth right now.
Gone are the days when we could assume that our children would have ample opportunities to participate in school-sponsored (and funded) extracurricular activities.
Over the past few months, the budget ax has fallen on middle school sports, music programs, librarians and computer labs. Freshmen sports at San Benito High School are on the chopping block for next year and a fundraising meter has gone up at the corner of Nash and San Benito streets to show the progress that dozens of parents and community members have made in trying to save the sports program.
The generosity of our community is a double-edged sword. People are usually more than willing to help out by buying a candied apple or a tri-tip or a merchant discount card. With funding needs greater than ever, that generosity is being put to the test by the sheer number of requests being made.
Students in my classroom routinely ask me if I’ll buy this or that to help out their organization, and I do my best to say yes if I’ve got the cash on hand. My sons have already hit up their relatives and our friends to buy raffle tickets and meal vouchers and almost without fail they come through.
During the high school basketball program’s tri tip distribution day a couple months back, some of the moms volunteering on a Sunday were talking about how they could help save the sports program – not just for their daughters and sons, who were already Balers, but for those waiting in the wings.
From that discussion, and with input from the Baler Backers Organization, the “Back a Baler for a Buck” fundraising idea was hatched and recently launched.
The idea is to encourage all San Benito County residents to donate $1 for every person in their household to help save sports at San Benito High School. With more than 55,000 people in the county, the effort – if successful – would go a long way toward helping make up the funding shortfall the athletic program is experiencing this year.
“We continue to tap into the same retailers to help us,” said Rhonda Newman, a Baler Backers member who has a sophomore student-athlete and another in eighth grade. “We don’t want to wear out our welcome with them. They all try to support us, but now we need to go outside of them as well.”
The group acknowledges that not every household in our county is going to donate $1 per person to the cause, but it’s worth the effort to ask. Times are tough for everybody, but could I spare $4? Absolutely.
“Some people aren’t going to give anything,” Newman said, “so our goal is to reach as many people as we can. You can’t expect everyone to give.”
The Baler Backers hope that some people with the means to do so will make larger donations to help the cause. A $20 donation from one person would make up for five households that didn’t donate. A $100 gift would represent a city block. A thousand-dollar gift would be a whole neighborhood.
Donor fatigue is a real issue in San Benito County and elsewhere. We can only buy so many Girl Scout cookies or tri tip meals or raffle tickets.
We spend more than a dollar on a soda in the drive-thru and three times that on a fancy cup of coffee. Sacrificing just a bit to help save sports or band or other valuable extracurriculars for our county’s youth is one of the best investments I can think of.
It’s not about raising money to buy an extra set of jerseys or fancy warm-up equipment; it’s about stepping up as a community and stepping in to help maintain the opportunities that these programs have provided to generations of students.
It’s about keeping hundreds of students occupied and motivated and on a path toward success, not out on the street with nothing to do when the school day ends.
A dollar isn’t much by itself but it is the first step. If enough of us take that step, the power of those individual dollars will be multiplied by thousands.
Donations for the inaugural “Back a Baler for a Buck” fundraising drive can be mailed to Baler Backers Athletic Organization, 1700 Airline Hwy., PMB 356, Hollister, 95023. Online donations can also be made through a secure site at www.haybalerathletics.com.
Adam Breen writes a blog at http://thebreenblog.blogspot.com and teaches newspaper and yearbook classes at San Benito High School. He is a reporter for The Pinnacle and former editor of the Free Lance.
