Teaming Up for the Community a HUGE SUCCESS!!

On Saturday, November 21st, Athletic Evolution held their First Annual “Teaming Up for the Community” event at their Woburn facility.  This year the day consisted of a Food Drive to benefit the Greater Boston Food Bank (www.gbfb.org), New England’s largest hunger-relief organization who distributes over 30 million pounds of food per year to more than 600 hunger relief agencies in eastern Massachusetts.  Given the recent economic climate and how it has affected the Food Bank – food requests from families in need are near all-time highs – Athletic Evolution thought the perfect way to kick off the holiday season would be to “team up” with its student athletes and adults who train with them to help provide hungry individual families and individuals with a warm meal this Thanksgiving.

Athletic Evolution held the event in an Open House format – the company opened its doors free of charge to anyone and everyone who wanted to stop by and help out this worth cause.  Canned goods were exchanged for raffle tickets at the door and additional tickets were sold throughout the day with all proceeds going directly to the Greater Boston Food Bank.  Raffle prizes included multiple sets of tickets to Celtics, Patriots, Bruins, Red Sox and Cannons games as well as autographed balls and jerseys from local celebrity athletes – all of which were donated by AE’s clients and business partners.  In addition, many local stores and restaurants contributed generously with gift cards that were packaged together and raffled off to lucky winners. 

Several of Boston’s professional sports teams also got involved first-hand – the Boston Celtics World Championship trophy and members of the dance team were there for the day for photo opportunities; the Boston Breakers and 2008 Beijing Olympic Gold Medalist Angela Hucles was there to talk to the athletes and take pictures; and several players from the New England Revolution were present to put on soccer juggling demonstrations and play pick-up games with the kids.  Athletic Evolution also held several contests – Baseball/Softball Guess Your Pitch Speed; Lacrosse Accuracy Shootout; Basketball 3-Point Shootout and Foul Shooting Contest; an Obstacle Courses; and a Football QB Challenge – to get the crowd involved as much as possible and make it a fun day for everyone who came to help. 

“The energy in the facility was tremendous with the kids cheering each other on during all of the contests.  And every time we posted the new weight total people would cheer and congratulate us on what a great job we were doing.  This was a very important day for our us as we all understand just how important it is to help those less fortunate, and seeing the positive reaction from the surrounding communities made it that much better,” said Brian Skeffington, Chief Operating Officer at Athletic Evolution.  Skeffington added, “We just figured, we have a 30,000 square foot facility that can accommodate hundreds of people at a time so let’s get creative and put it to use for a good cause.  What better way than a Food Drive the Saturday before Thanksgiving?”

Over the course of just 4 hours the event raised about 6,000 lbs. of food that they donated directly to the Greater Boston Food Bank to help them feed the hungry this holiday season.  According to the Greater Boston Food Bank, that translates into approximately 4,600 meals, which is enough to do the following – feed 10 families of 4 from now through the end of the year; feed one family of 4 for over a year; or provide 4,600 individuals with a warm meal on Thanksgiving day!  After the event Erik Kaloyanides, President of Athletic Evolution, said, “We want to thank everyone who came out today and participated in this event, especially all of our volunteers who worked tirelessly throughout the day to make it a huge success.  We hope that what we accomplished today resonates within the community and encourages other individuals and businesses to take it upon themselves to give back as well this holiday season.”

Special thanks to everyone who helped us make this event such a success!