Bahama Bowl will roll Feb. 19

By Kallie Leonard
Western Herald

Big Brothers Big Sisters is seeking individual students and student organizations to participate in their 4th annual Bahama Bowl, a tropical-themed fundraising event to support their youth mentoring program in Southwest Michigan.

Bahama Bowl will be held at Harpo’s Lanes on Feb. 19 beginning at 9 p.m. Big Brothers Big Sisters is asking students and organizations to form teams of four or five. Each team is expected to raise $225 in pledges in exchange for two free games of bowling, complimentary shoe rental, and a T-shirt. Their will also be a cash bar available.

“It’s a great event to help support your community but yet have an awesome time,” said Andrea Barrett associate for individual giving at Big Brothers Big Sisters. “We put on an amazing party.”

According to Shelly Claflin, fund development assistant for Big Brothers Big Sisters, the main goal of the event is to create awareness and have fun while raising money for the community.

Bahama Bowl has previously raised as much as $17,000 to support the 1,800 children they service in Southwest Michigan and they are hoping to top that this year.

“Our goal is $18,000,”Claflin said. “All of the money raised funds our cost to operate; We don’t have much overhead, as our office building was built and donated to us, so our money is spent on the people that make the matches between ‘bigs’ and ‘littles’.”

There will be two time slots in which teams can choose to bowl, one beginning at 9 p.m. and the other beginning at 11 p.m.

“The cool thing about the time slots is that you can either come at 9 and bowl, then go out with your friends after or you can start by going out and then come bowl at 11.”

Participants will also have a chance to win prizes including movie passes, restaurant gift cards, tanning packages or free a rock climbing experience at Climb Kalamazoo. These and other prizes will be given out every couple of minutes.

Bowlers will also enjoy live music during the event.

“This year will be different because we will have the ‘Living the Dream’ band play for us,” Claflin said. “They have volunteered to play both shifts of bowling at no cost, and they will be playing right out on the lanes so our teams can bowl to live music.”

Big Brothers Big Sisters is also seeking campus oriented business to help sponsor this event. Anyone interested in volunteering or sponsoring is encouraged to contact Shelly Claflin at shellyc@bbbsmi.org.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Feb 1 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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