Harlem Ambassadors put the ‘fun’ in fundraising for United Way

By LeAnne Gompf

The United Way Kick­off was a suc­cess as Harlem Ambas­sadors enter­tain the crowd.

The com­mu­nity event and Mor­row County United Way Kick­off pro­vided good, clean, fam­ily fun for nearly 900 spec­ta­tors. The Harlem Ambas­sadors vs. the ‘Home­town Heroes’ bas­ket­ball game suc­ceeded in not only lift­ing the spir­its of those in atten­dance but also rais­ing over $8000 for the local United Way campaign.

Jodi Hayes, Direc­tor for the local United Way Chap­ter, com­mented, “I was thrilled with the com­mu­nity sup­port by the atten­dance and spon­sor­ship of this event. What a joy to see chil­dren and fam­i­lies laugh­ing and hav­ing such a good time.”

The Harlem Ambas­sadors pro­fes­sional bas­ket­ball show is intended to help local orga­ni­za­tions’ efforts to raise funds for wor­thy causes. They deliv­ered exactly what they promised; qual­ity bas­ket­ball yet designed to enter­tain with tried and true gags.

Accord­ing to the Ambas­sadors’ mis­sion state­ment, “Our oper­a­tion is pro­fes­sional in all aspects. In addi­tion to hav­ing a whole­some fam­ily enter­tain­ment prod­uct, we are also good cit­i­zens and will­ing role mod­els for youth.” At the con­clu­sion of the evening’s event the Harlem Ambas­sadors spoke of the impor­tance of stay­ing in school, remain­ing drug free and encour­aged racial har­mony for peo­ple of all ages.

The Ambas­sadors demon­strated good will as they took on the local Spe­cial Olympics bas­ket­ball team coached by Aaron Cleve­land. Mem­bers of the Spe­cial Olympic team included Scott Schau­pert, Bran­don Kasales, Mike Knipp, Jason Pryor, Matt Ohler, Penny Cranston, Josh Stu­ber, Garett Bader, David Sargel and Ellen Ship­man. The team was not ruf­fled in any­way by the friendly “may­hem” of the Ambas­sadors and played their best game.

The crowd encour­aged and cheered their “Home­town Heroes” with each bas­ket or foul shot made. In the addi­tional three quar­ters of play, com­mu­nity mem­bers, coached by Chris Traux, attempted to keep up with the Harlem Ambas­sadors, never quite sure which direc­tion the game was going to take. Like watch­ing an old com­edy, the Ambas­sadors per­formed time tested gags, prompt­ing the player to “join” in the spirit of fun and entertainment.

Mor­row County Heroes team included Gary Bartlett, Kurt Keplinger, Steve Keen, Randy Chilcote, Joe Schueler, Scott Pauley, Shawn Wil­helm, Caleb Dun­can, Chris Rupe, Ben Pletcher, Ben Granger, Jessie Mar­low, Al Mar­low, Ryan Oates and Kirsten Ebert.

At one point in the fourth quar­ter the Ambas­sadors hud­dled up to strate­gize their next move leav­ing the Home­town Heroes ask­ing “are we still play­ing bas­ket­ball?” With­out miss­ing a beat, the Home­town Heroes quickly adapted to the change of pace and scored not one, but two “touchdowns”!

The 2012–2013 United Way cam­paign goal is $130,000. For the past sev­eral years the Mor­row County Chap­ter has not been able to meet their finan­cial goal but with the gen­eros­ity of spon­sors and com­mu­nity sup­port for the kick­off the board is hope­ful this will be a good year and the goal will be met or surpassed.

The kick­off event would not have been suc­cess­ful with­out the vol­un­teer efforts of the local agen­cies that Mor­row County United Way sup­ports. Those agen­cies include Amer­i­can Red Cross, Emer­gency Resource Coun­cil – Food Pantry, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Seniors on Cen­ter, Recov­ery and Pre­ven­tion Ser­vices, Mar­ion Shel­ter Pro­gram, Mary­haven, and Turn­ing Point. Addi­tion­ally the event spon­sors are to be praised for finan­cially mak­ing it pos­si­ble to bring fam­ily enter­tain­ment to Mor­row County.

The United Way board would like to thank Cen­tury 21 Bob McEl­roy Realty; Carol Lessick, Real­tor for Cen­tury 21 Bob McEl­roy Realty; Hol­i­day Inn and Suites-Marion; Mor­row County Hos­pi­tal; Helpline of Mor­row and Del­ware Coun­ties; hope Cab­ins and Banquet,LLC; Seniors of Cen­ter; Con­sol­i­dated Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive; Shop­pers Com­pass; Kiwa­nis Club of Mount Gilead; First Fed­eral Bank of Ohio; Chester­ville Sand and Gravel Co, Inc.; Mar­ket Mor­row; Wood­side Vil­lage Care Cen­ter; Wenger Builders, Karcher Truck­ing; Lilly Indus­tries; Car­lyle Smith Feed; High­land Mid­dle and High School; and First Know National Bank. Pat Davies, Mor­row County Direc­tor of Oper­a­tions and Dan Rogers, Mount Gilead Vil­lage Admin­istar­tor vol­un­teered their offi­ci­at­ing exper­tise for the evening and found that the “offi­cial rules” for the game, as they know it, did not exist.

Other game events included the auc­tion­ing of the offi­cial game ball auto­graphed by the Harlem Ambas­sadors and pur­chased by Steve Keen, Branch Man­ager of First Fed­eral Bank of Ohio and The Shop­pers Com­pass, a half-time show with spec­ta­tors fill­ing the gym­na­sium floor to kick up their heels and dance a line dance with the Harlem Ambas­sadors; and a three point shoot­ing com­pe­ti­tion by area high school out­stand­ing players.

The Home­town Heroes failed to fill the gap in the score as the game pro­gressed and in the end lost to the Harlem Ambas­sadors, but over­all the evening was a home­town suc­cess on behalf of United Way of Mor­row County, the county that COULD!

For more infor­ma­tion on how you can sup­port the local United Way, con­tact Direc­tor Jodi Hayes at 419–946-2053 or mail your con­tri­bu­tions directly to her at United Way of Mor­row County P.O. Box 84 Mount Gilead, Ohio 43338.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Nov 20 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.