Austin Wildcats Basketball, Inc

Letter from the Player's Council President

3rd Annual Toy Drive

Dear Wildcats and Parents,

My name is Alexis Dirvin. I am asking for your support in our annual toy drive through either a donation of new toys, or a financial donation so we can buy toys. You can donate by bringing a toy or financial donation as your "admission" to Saturday Night Madness, or if you'd like to contribute between events, you can bring donations to practice. Last year, I had the great privilege of being involved in the Toy Drive. I made the giant poster of the thermometer showing everyone how many toys we had collected. 260 of the 400 toys we gave to the kids at Dove Springs were given as toy donations. The other 140 toys were purchased with financial donations received during Midnight Madness. I was one of the 4 lucky Wildcats, along with Jennie Stone, and Julia Smith, that went to Toys R Us to purchase the toys with our Moms and, our toy expert, Charles, who is Julia's younger brother. I was also at Dove Springs handing out the toys to kids at their Winter Festival with my mother, Julia Smith, my brother Eric, Ruthie Boyce and Orry Yarbrough. It felt really cool to be part of that whole operation.

While I was at Dove Springs, I learned a lot, such as most of the younger boys really liked basketballs. Surprisingly they didn't like footballs, baseballs, etc. nearly as much as they liked basketballs. Don't get me wrong, they were happy to get anything, but they liked the basketballs more. The reason we had only three basketballs last year was because we warned parents not to get basketballs. We were afraid that the parents would only get basketballs and we wanted a little more variety. This year we still want a variety of toys, but want more basketballs. The girls were very stereotypical - they liked dolls and "girlie" stuff just like any other kid their age.

Even though actual toys are awesome, we also appreciate money. When we went to Toys R Us, we were given a shopper. She was amazingly helpful. She knew what kids liked in certain age groups and she knew the good deals for our money. We had previously marked down what toys we had for different age groups and she helped fill in gender and age group gaps. I know we filled up at least four shopping carts full of toys. For each $75 we spent, we got a huge Mickey or Minnie Mouse stuffed animal for $5. These were very popular with the young kids.

We are again trying to get at least 300 toys for the kids at Dove Springs. We feel connected to Dove Springs because we have played in a very competitive basketball league there for over five years. We need volunteers to help deliver toys and volunteer kids to help work at the festival (we don't know when it is yet.) We are only looking at about 8-9 kids and we really want them to work, not slack off. We'll also need volunteers to wrap presents. If you don't know what kind of toy to get or you just don't have time, you can make a financial donation.

If you have any questions or want to volunteer to help with Saturday Midnight Madness or the Toy Drive, Please e-mail me ( Alexis ) or Darrel Smith ( Darrel ).

Thanks so much for helping!

 

Alexis Dirvin

President of Wildcats Player's Council