Dear Parents,

Now that the Tournament of Hope financial accounting is complete, I am pleased to report that we raised $8,036.82 to divide among the four families that have and continue to suffer from cancer.

 Although the money raised will provide some encouragement to the families, it only tells half of the story. The other half was the show of community support and the acts of loving kindness from some truly extraordinary people that I believe will have the most lasting impact. Please take a moment to consider some of what follows:

Faith Church at Sellersville/Faith Christian Academy (FCA):

• Permitted TeamX to use the venue without cost
• Paid over $1000 for the T-shirts to help reduce the tournament costs
• Henry and Liz Thompson who coordinated the entire snack stand effort and worked tirelessly maintaining the snack stand for the entire weekend.
• The Faith Church Youth Group, and many other Faith Church volunteers who volunteered to work the snack stand
• Bill Totaro who stood in the parking lot for most of the weekend to coordinate parking so some could avoid walking up the steep hill
• Brian Everitt who designed the T-shirt logo, Rita Ritter who photographed the tournament, Melanie Thompson  and Terri Comfort who sorted through and distributed 380 t-shirts,  the grounds crew who beautified the fields and many many more members of Faith Church who gave of themselves simply for the joy of loving and serving the community and the families who are battling the effects of cancer.

Our Sponsors: each of the sponsors listed below contributed a minimum $125 in support of the fund raiser.

 
The TeamX Community:

• Who Volunteered at the snack stand
• Who Donated food and drinks so we could reduce the cost of snack stand items
• Referees – who worked 18 hours, so our games could be refereed. Specifically Jason Moreira, Stacey Marshall, Loretta Pigeon, and Anthony Polsinelli who refereed every game for the entire tournament.
• Individuals who donated money to the cause well above the suggested $10 a player registration. Your generosity was humbling.
• Coaches who coached teams and volunteered to help referee games.
• The countless people who sent me songs of hope so I could build a musical playlist

And please consider a few more:

Gracie Connors – eleven year old cancer survivor who shared her riveting testimony of courage, faith and hope in Jesus Christ in front of multitudes of people in attendance. She inspired everyone!

Albert Grove, owner of Integritees for Life who donated 32 hours of his time to print the T-shirts

Kyle March – one of our referees who worked close to twenty hours-setting up the fields and refereeing and who refused to take a penny for his labor. And after I insisted, he said “if you pay me its only going right back as a donation.”  He then followed by saying, “my mother is a cancer survivor and this is my way of showing support.”

The 14U Steelers Team – when they found out about the Tournament of Hope, the kids took it upon themselves to raise money and raised over $1,000 for the families.

And forgive me for not including the many additional examples, as I know there are more.

The Tournament of Hope represented all that is good with people. And I think no one was blessed more than me as I had the privilege of seeing the totality of goodness demonstrated by truly remarkable people.

My hope is that TeamX Sports, our partners like Faith Church, and the truly generous, kind, caring and courageous people associated with our sports programs will continue to find more and more opportunities to use sports to be a blessing to people undergoing hardship.  You inspire me!

Thank you for making The Tournament of Hope an extraordinary event!

Mike Brown
TeamX Sports