The women’s basketball team walks up to the door of a stranger in an unknown neighborhood. A member of the team rings the doorbell and the whole team prepares to deliver Christmas cheer. It isn’t Christmas carols they’re giving though, it’s gifts and other items the people need funded by the Shooting Santas fundraiser.
“We’re trying to help poor families at Christmastime who, through no fault of their own, find themselves financially in a situation where they won’t be able to provide Christmas in terms of presents, trees, meals, and stuff like that,” women’s basketball coach Mike Blizzard said.
Blizzard started working with Shooting Santas 12 years ago as a women’s basketball coach at Havre de Grace High School. He took inspiration from the March of Dimes, a 25 mile walk in which people are sponsored for every mile they walk to help prevent health issues in babies. Blizzard decided to do the same with shooting foul shots, but to assist families at Christmastime. In their first year at JC, the team raised 1,500 dollars.
This money was not raised, however, within JC guidelines for fundraisers in school.
“Shooting Santas is a perfect example of a well intentioned fundraiser, but one that was never approved administratively here at school. Since they are using JC property and since they are using the JC girls’ basketball team to raise the funds, it has to follow school policy just like any other fundraiser,” Director of Annual Giving and Constituent Relations Laura Lang said.
Because of the lack of communication, changes have been made to the program. According to Blizzard, the changes are not “really rule changes as much as guidelines to make sure we are all working together and not soliciting school donors in the name of JC.”
“People are good intentioned, but they need to know that they need to operate within the big picture. The guidelines and policies are intended to coordinate all fundraisers within the school and to make sure that everything is on the up and up, that everyone is following IRS [Internal Revenue Service] policy in regards to their fundraisers,” Lang said.
“At first, JC wasn’t going to be associated with [Shooting Santas], but now they’re back supporting us … We were going to shoot the foul shots [at JC] but had to move it, but now we’ve been allowed to move it back [to JC],” senior co-captain Mackenzie Reese said.
Senior co-captain Sam Clarke is loyal to the program and how the basketball team is involved.
“People sponsor me and they can either give a flat rate or per shot rate … We are shooting 50 free throw shots. With all the money we shop at Target and deliver the gifts we buy to families,” Clarke said.
Clarke has delivered to families in need through the program, but one visit stands out. “One family was living in the Red Roof Hotel. They had five kids and [one of the kids] had just had his bike stolen, so we got him a new one,” Clarke said. “It was sad to see all the kids living in the hotel in one room, but it felt really good to be able to help them.”
Martha Schick is the Multimedia Chief for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.