When your son's baseball team wins a district title (against Durango - that's always sweet!) and the coach says, "We're going to state!" reality starts to set in.
State means motel rooms in Grand Junction for at least two nights, and if we win, it can mean another three or four nights.
Plus gas, plus feeding 13 hungry little boys three times a day, plus snacks and drinks...well, you get the picture.
A weekend tournament is usually affordable for a group of working class families. But five or six days gets pretty expensive.
We started doing the math, and it was coming to $1,000 to $1,500 per family. Whew. Quite a few of our parents our self-employed, too, so that turns into a double hit on the family budget when dad isn't working. And we have 10 days to try to raise the funds.
So we put our heads together and started figuring out which bosses and which clients might donate some money, and is there anyone else we can ask?
On Wednesday and Thursday, my husband took some of our boys around in their baseball uniforms to local businesses to politely ask for donations. They had been threatened with bodily harm if they acted up, so they were on their good behavior.
Once again, the generosity of this community was overwhelming. When a nice lady who's been standing on her feet all day writes out a check for a hundred bucks, you know that gift really involved a lot of hard work.
One business owner said she usually turns down solicitations (I know, there are a lot of requests out there.) But the boys started catching grasshoppers out in front of her business, and they were pretty darned cute, so she wrote out a three-figure check as well.
If baseball isn't your sport, the Ignacio Wrestling Association is having a fundraiser next week as well!
Our spaghetti dinner is from 5 to 7 p.m. tomorrow at the Lions Club.
Whether folks give $5 or a whole lot more, your support is truly appreciated, and we hope we represent Bayfield and Ignacio well in Grand Junction.
On to state!
Thanks for reading.