Association Fundraiser

[ChuckElias]

I'm not looking for a pat on the back or anything, but Mick said that I should share this with the board, so here it is.

Our local IAABO Board 31 gives out a scholarship every year to two local HS seniors who are going on to college the following year. We give one to a male basketball player and one to a female basketball player. The members of the board make individual donations if they see fit, but we also have two other methods of fundraising.

One is a local youth tournament. The organizers of the tournament make a donation to our scholarship fund in exchange for officials who ref a game or two for free.

The other method is our annual Jamboree. (This is the part mick wanted me to talk about ) We invite four schools to the Jamboree. Each team plays two separate 8-minute quarters against two different teams. We play four quarters of basketball. (Each team only plays 16 minutes, which is necessary for some State Association regulation.)

In between the shortened "games", we have cheerleaders come out for a "hot-shot" competition, kind of like the 2-ball game that they play at the NBA All-Star break. And we also have the coaches come out for free throw competition. A local radio personality is the brother of one of our officials and generously MC's for us gratis.

We charge admission, somebody donates concessions, and we have a 50/50 raffle, with all the proceeds going into the scholarship fund.

When each school advertises the Jamboree and brings a following, we get a good gate. The first two years we had boys teams compete, this year we had girls teams.

It's usually a really fun time. And it really does help out the board and the fund. I've officiated two of the three years now, and last year I was a team "escort" (making sure everybody knew when they had to be on the court, etc.)

Anyway, if any of you have ambitious people who would like to do a fun fundraiser, we've had very good success with it. Good luck.

Chuck