All your favorites in one spot! If you are a sports fan, golfer, athlete or just plain enjoy a good night out, this was the event for you. CharitaBulls teamed up with The Wade Smith Foundation to put on an altruistic event in Houston, Texas at the always entertaining, Top Golf. There were countless amounts of stars from every end of the spectrum, food, friends and all for a good cause.
CharitaBulls put this PAR-Tee together to raise funds for The Wade Smith Foundation in order to create more opportunities for students in the community to continue to get quality education regardless of their background.
CharitaBulls was founded in 2013, and since then has raised over $50,000 for local nonprofit organizations. “CharitaBulls partners with former and current professional athletes, local media personalities, and business professionals to provide exciting sports related fundraising events in the community. This partnership is instrumental in bringing awareness to both the communities’ impact in fundraising efforts and the needs of local nonprofits.” CharitaBulls all started when two die-hard Texans fans, Hollie Fulsom and Shanan Malone, connected over twitter and decided, “There is strength in numbers, and working together improves the lives of all involved, “and the rest is history”. What started out as a simple idea, has built into a community family, and they aren’t stopping any time soon.
The Wade Smith Foundation, founded by former NFL offensive lineman and Pro Bowler, Wade Smith, “mission is to facilitate the growth of today’s youth by providing them with the necessary tools to improve their overall development as a young adult.” They hold all types of events including “Reading With the Pros” (RWTP) which promotes and supports childhood literacy and education through in-person celebrity book readings and classroom visits. I have had the pleasure of participating in one of the RWTP events, and let me tell you, they do it big! The RWTP I joined with in Arizona at the Super Bowl had 15 athletes from different teams of all genres, current and former, and even had Jordan Sparks do a surprise appearance where she sang a cappella for the school.
If you haven’t made it to a Top Golf yet, you are missing out. Even if you aren’t a golfer, you could be a Pro at this interactive game. This is a great way to get out with friends and be active. This PAR-Tee, held at Top Golf in Katy, took over the entire third story of the venue. There was a live auction, photo booth, prizes, and giveaways, not to mention the delicious pulled pork sandwiches and drinks. Each golf bay had teams of 5 to 6 individuals with at least one star. There were over 40 celebrities and 300 participants that showed up! The event was a sell out! Everywhere you turned you saw another familiar face with celebrities such as Wade Smith, Duane Brown, Chester Pitts, Ben Jones, Jon Weeks, Cody White, and Garrett Graham from the Houston Texans, Tony Hills from the Dallas Cowboys, Brice McCain from the Miami Dolphins, James Ihedigbo from the Detroit Lions, Herb Taylor from the Jaguars, Michael Chabala and Brian Ching from the Houston Dynamo, Golf Pro Stephen Reed, and the list goes on and on. I don’t think anyone stayed in their golf bay for long. After an hour of playing and getting to know your team and of course making some friendly rivalries, the celebrities and guests were walking around signing or getting autographs, taking photos, accompanied with non-stop mingling. There was live music on the deck, with all the musicians decked in their Texan’s gear from head to toe; it was one big party!
This was the first year for the PAR-Tee, raising a prosperous $30,000, which will be donated to The Wade Smith Foundation, and I have no doubt if CharitaBulls decide to hold the event again next year, it will be even bigger and better. The photos from the event have been flooding all of my news feeds today. It’s refreshing to see everyone come out as a team to work together to build a stronger community, and as Wade Smith quotes on his foundation’s website, “It’s not necessarily the amount of time you spend at practice that counts; it’s what you put into the practice” quoted by Eric Lindros. The more we come together as a team and put the quality time in with these events, literacy readings, or giving back in any capacity, the more we will build this community to enable the next generation to live that much more successfully.
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