Booster Club Holds ‘An Evening of Champions’

QUONSET — Every once in a while everybody needs a little boost, and that is exactly what An Evening of Champions was all about.

The North Kingstown High School Booster Club held its annual major fund raising event Saturday night at the Quonset O club, with the hopes of raising more than $25,000 to benefit NKHS athletics.

“It’s a ton of work, but we have a lot of fun with it,” Booster Club President Dave Marble said. “They [student athletes] work so hard and all we want to do is give them that environment to grow and give them tools they need and give them an opportunity, that’s all we’re trying to do.”

The night featured a sit-down dinner, cocktails, and both live and silent auctions with thousands of dollars worth of prizes up for grabs.

“Last we raised over $30,000 at this event alone, and that makes up a strong portion of our overall budget,” Marble said.  “We probably put in 50-60,000 dollars a year into the school program, and this makes up more than half of that.”

On the side of the silent auction there were 90 gift baskets up for grabs, featuring prizes such as a jersey and a hockey stick autographed by Mike Eruzione, a painting by local artist Victoria Corey and many more.

The live auction began shortly after 9 p.m. with a $5,000 raffle drawing, and seven items up for bids, including Red Sox-Yankees tickets valued at $2,000 and a five-course meal for 10 catered by Chef Kevin M. Gaudreau from the Pier Restaurant.

In all over 130 businesses donated prizes to help make this night happen, along with the tireless hours of hard work donated by volunteers.

“They know that this is our annual event and people step up in a big way,” former Booster Club President Anne Lipsitz said.  “It’s always a good time and it brings the community together for sports.”

While there were many winners Saturday night, ultimately it was the student athletes that came out with the top prize.

“It doesn’t matter whether or not I won, or someone else won, the bottom line is that the students of North Kingstown High School win,” Tom Shola, whose son is a freshman at the high school, said.

“This is a night for the student athletes of North Kingstown High School, all of the people want to be here, we want to support the school, we want to support the community and we want to support our student athletes here at the school.”

The night helps cover equipment costs for teams, sports awards for more than 700 athletes, team state championship jackets and maybe most importantly senior athlete college scholarships.

“We have a fund raising goal of 25,000 and this is the majority source for our senior athlete scholarships,” Lipsitz said.  “We hope to give out 20,000 [dollars] this year, and it’s a real big support from the community.” 

The night also provides a community-building, social opportunity for residents of the town to get together in support of athletics.

“This is a big social thing for NK, we’ve got over 250 people here and we’re all neighbors so we have a good time,” Marble said. 

As a country we are currently facing tough economic times, and at the high school level one of the first places officials look to cut costs is in athletics.

“Budgets have become very difficult over the last couple years, and usually they look at sports to cut unfortunately,” Shola said. 

“I think I speak for a lot of people here in North Kingstown when I say that the athletic program here is extremely important to these kids.  Academics come first, but with that said it’s very important to keep them busy with extracurricular activities to keep them headed in the right direction.”