OUR STORY

A day at the ballpark

In 2010, a group of 16 friends got together for an annual Astros’ opening day at Minute Maid Park. From then on, the group started to grow, and the next thing we know the group turned in to 30! After that year, we decided that we could turn our annual opening day outing into a larger party, and moved to “The Rooftop” at Union Station.  During our first event on the rooftop in 2014, we had 85 attendees! After that party we realized we had $500 remaining (after paying for tickets and catering). Our founders decided it would be a great idea to donate the surplus money! We chose Texas Children's hospital because of the great work they do for sick kids and their families.  After that event, we made it our mission to make our annual opening weekend party into a fundraising event. In 2015, because of the success of the previous year, we raised a whopping $1,000, which we donated to the Craig Biggio sponsored Sunshine Kids.  

At that point, our group knew that we had good momentum and we realized we were on to something, but the funds we raised weren't having the impact we were looking for.  The next year, in 2016, we made the decision that we would focus more on a local level.  The idea is that there are plenty of families in need around us and that have ties to our group and our communities. That being said, we made the oath that all proceeds would be given to a local family in need (with the help of our attendees) rather than a large organization.  When invitations went out for the event we asked for family nominations from our guests.  We had several families nominated and the decision on the final recipient was difficult. That year we raised $2,500. In 2017, we grew the donation to  $3,500! In 2018, the season after the Astros won the World Series, we rocketed our donation total to $9,000!!! In 2019, with rain hindering our effort a bit, we were still able to raise $8,000 for a local family! To date, we have raised over $25,000...all because of a group of Astros fans celebrating a day at the ballpark. 

Proceeds from our events, including ticket sales, sponsors and the silent auction, benefit a different family every year.  The beauty of the event is that the receiving families have no idea we are raising money for them until we deliver it to them in person.

The smiles and tears from the families  (and event attendees) receiving this unexpected gift are priceless.