Kingdom Hoops Season Kick-off & Fundraising Event

On Friday night we held our first-ever Kingdom Hoops Kick-off event which also doubled as an in-house fundraiser! It was a major hit! A few of our Kingdom Cares International board members organized the entire night which included shooting contests to raise money - half-court shot, hot shot, and a free-throw contest against Jake in which players had gathered pledges the past few months. The player who raised the most pledges won an IPAD2! There were also raffles, teambuilding activities like team-knockout, unveiling of the new uniforms designed by one of the players (Brady Elder), unveiling of the Kingdom Hoops spirit wear website via partnership with Sports Page (go to www.sportspageteam.com, click on team, then select Kingdom Hoops to order), team pictures, shirt order fundraiser, and a chunk of time for Jake to share his vision for the 2011-2012 season in addition to briefing the parents and players on our Ghana projects. The entire night was set to the back-drop of a dj who played all the latest hits, and there was lots of dancing going on! These kids may be basketball players, but they’ve got some mad dancing skills too! There was also a special surprise for the night that we knew the kids would love…..we got a fog machine and balloon arch and had the dj announce each player and team individually, just like they do in the NBA all-star game! You can imagine how much fun they had with it!

All in all the event cost us about $1500 to put on, but we raised a smidge over $12,000 (and that doesn’t even include the money we will make on the shirt orders that were also a huge hit)!!!!! Not too shabby for the first ever in-house fundraiser! This event kicks off the season for the 3rd through 8th grade teams as the high schoolers will be tied up with their school teams through March. Some of the high-schoolers that were at the event for their younger siblings were begging Jake to hold the kick-off event for their teams come spring!

I was busy gabbing most of the night so I got off track on capturing all the moments I had hoped to, but here are a few!

Some of the players show off the new uniforms and Jake & Alex sport the shirt we are selling as a fundraiser.

My kids and our Rosebud girls had SO MUCH fun hanging with friends and dancing!

Half-court shot contest......

The fog machine............................................................

I grabbed a cute video of Justice being announced with his team (he's playing with the 3rd grade boys this year). :)


Raquel Dickerson, player on the 7th grade girl's team, raised the most pledges for the free-throw fundraiser coming in at $1309! In the week leading up to the event all the players who participated in gathering pledges got to have a shoot out for the chance to take Jake on in one minute of free-throw shooting at the event. Lauren Riggs (pictured below), 7th grade girls team, and Collin Lister, 5th grade boys team, made the most free-throws in the team shootout and got to take on Jake. In one minute Lauren made 16 free-throws, but she couldn't catch Jake who made 24 free-throws! Collin came so close, making 21 free-throws, but Jake edged him out by making 22 free-throws. :) This part of the night was a fan favorite!!!!!

3rd through 8th grade boys and girls teams...................

So our first kick-off event/fundraiser was a definite success, and I only see this getting better and better each year!