“On Saturday Dec. 4th we held our 12th Annual St Jude Poker Night. Let me start off with a huge shout out to Heath Barr and Michael Bouvier. I am not sure if the effort of these two guys is understood but in September Heath and Michael started going around to our local businesses advertising our tournament and soliciting donations. Nice job guys!!!! A Special Thank You also goes out to Mike and Simone Provenzano who provided us with a beautiful location and have pledged to host our tournament moving forward. Kendra, Michelle and Dana managing the ticket counter, Mario running poker tournament, some great food cooked up by Victor, Brent and Myca, Becky for A LOT of things too many to list, Robert and Elmer for pitching in anywhere we asked and the Lake Belton VFW Post 10377 providing tables, chairs, ice and food warmers as well pre-selling the $10 Hummer Grill Tickets. Thanks to the poker players and the many guests that make this event a very special occasion in our community.
Here is a recap of the event:
Our guest started arriving around 7pm and the fundraising began. We offered $5 prize bundle raffle tickets with the generosity of our wonderful businesses across Central Texas enabling us to build TEN of those raffle bundles! Our guests were able to put their tickets in front of the bundle they wanted. $10 Split Pot Tickets $10 Hummer Grill tickets donated by Frontline Metal, $10 Texas Flag BBQ Grill donated by Vision Metal and $20 Pit Boss Pellet Smoker tickets donated by Pitt Boss. At 7:45pm I made my speech with public thanks for showing up and recognizing who makes it happen. We then we showed Marlo’s Thank You from St. Jude video. Poker started up with 40 players going at it. Food was served and at 10pm we started drawing off the bundles leading into the Split Pot of $880 where Sayda Rivas will have $540 donated in her name at 8076. The Hummer Grill was won with a presold ticket at our VFW for a veteran’s nephew that lives in Reading Pa. The Texas Flag Grill was won by Michael Bouvier and the Pit Boss Grill (ok, ok, look if you buy tickets you have a chance to win) and yes I won the Pit Boss. Around Midnight we had our winners, 3rd Place Keith Castro, 2nd Place Mike Wick from MOH (also a donator of $600 in gift cards to the event) and the 1st place winner, Adam Messick. Adam will have $8960 donated in his name at 8076 giving us a Grand Total of $9500 raised for the kids at St Jude.
Again, Congrats to all us winners and an endless thank you to all those that make it happen for the kids.
I do want to say I am always at an AWW on how grateful and giving my neighbors and fellow businesses are. It is a no wonder why we are called the ‘Heart of Texas’.” – Chris Herd
