In 2015, Russellville High School opened its new Cyclone Arena, a $12.5 million project that provided a gleaming, large modern facility for the school's basketball and volleyball teams.
Russellville Athletic Director Johnny Johnson was grateful for the support for the new arena from Russellville residents and wanted to show his gratitude to the community. So he pitched the idea to the Russellville Noon Rotary Club of a basketball tournament with the funds going to local food banks. Tonya Oates, club president at the time, jumped on the idea.
"We called it Hoops for Hunger and the Rotary was our main partner," Johnson says.
Oates, now a past president of the Noon Rotary Club but still involved with the tournament, says, "It was really neat how it happened. We'd had a Rotary board meeting, and one of our members had recently read a story about how many people are going to bed hungry in Pope County. She was like, 'This is unacceptable. We have two Rotary clubs in this town, no one should go to bed hungry!'"
Oates said that the hunger problem had been on her mind when Johnson talked about the idea of a tournament. "I was like 'ooh!' I didn't even ask the board. I just said 'we're doing it.' It was an executive order," she says with a laugh.
The tournament, which starts the last Friday in December, has proved to be very successful.
"The first year, we were hoping that we might raise $5,000 or $10,000, and we ended up raising over $30,000. Then, the next year, we raised over $50,000. This year, we will go over $200,000 in total amount of money raised. So in five years, we will probably be close to $225,000. It's turned into kind of a ministry for our community," Johnson says.
The beneficiaries of the tournament have been Manna House, which has a food pantry program and serves families all over Pope County, and River Valley Food 4 Kids. "We couldn't have picked two better beneficiaries," he says, "because both of them are hit on immensely to help with hunger in this part of state."
The tournament has been successful enough that they've added a new recipient this year, a food pantry associated with the Methodist Church in Pottsville.
It's not just money brought in from sponsorships and ticket sales for the tournament that help these nonprofits.
"In addition to having a basketball tournament," Johnson says, "we have a competition with the teams in the tournament to bring food as well. We give a trophy to the team that brings in the most food."
The teams have the option, he says, of taking the food back to be distributed in their community or to donate it to the Pope County charities.
Ian Brian, chairman of this year's tournament, says they recommend teams donate cereal or peanut butter. "That's what's easiest and what we've done the first four years," he says. "We raised over 9,000 items of cereal and peanut butter. That's about 2,250 per year so we should reach over 10,000." Money donated in the first four years has helped to provide close to 120,000 meals, he says.
Johnson says they also try to make it fun for the teams in the tournament. Besides a trophy for the team bringing in the most food, all the players get T-shirts and coaches get gift certificates to local businesses. But it is still a tournament and although the teams know they are helping the community, it still comes down to wanting to win the tournament, Johnson says.
"It's still very competitive. And, last year we were fortunate for the first time in the four years that we had the tournament that both our boys and girls won. We had never won the tournament ourselves. And so last year our boys won and our girls won, so that was kind of exciting."
Tickets for the Hoops for Hunger Cyclone Classic are $7 each or $15 for all three days. The games start at 10 a.m. Dec. 27 and 28. There will be eight games played on each of those days, four boys and four girls. On Dec. 30, the first of six games will start at noon. The girls' championship game starts at 6 p.m., the boys' championship at 7:30 p.m. Check presentations to the food pantries will be at halftime during the boys' game. For more information or to make a donation call the Russellville Athletic Department at (479) 964-2411.
High Profile on 12/15/2019