Sports: Virus makes fundraising for local sporting events a challenge
COVID-19 has made fundraising for local events a challenge
For Ann-Marie Houle, Stonington High School's softball coach, the springtime usually reaches its capacity for chaos.
There's Little League for 13-yearold daughter Lindsey and 7-yearold Josh, husband Steve's birthday, teaching and the extras that come with coaching, including the team's annual pancake breakfast fundraiser and Senior Night.
Houle said that when it comes to one of the most memorable days of softball season, Stonington's yearly Play4TheCure game against Waterford, it's almost like hitting life's pause button.
Houle and then-Waterford coach Liz Sutman started the game in 2010 to raise money for cancer awareness in honor of Houle's sister Kim Crowley and Sutman's brother John Walker, both of whom lost their battles with childhood cancer. It was also a tribute to Sutman's niece Marissa Walker, 10 at the time, who fought osteosarcoma and, painstakingly, won.
"You just get to take a breather before that game and remember why you do it," Houle said this week.
This season's Play4TheCure, which would have been played for the 11th time, was canceled, along with the rest of the spring high school sports season across the country by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Houle and current Waterford coach Andy Walker — Sutman's brother — felt terribly for their seniors, but what could they do?
Then, they decided the show must go on.
After collaborating with Peter Huoppi, The Day's director of multimedia, the teams from Waterford and Stonington announced they
would hold a virtual Play4TheCure. The 2017 edition of the game will be replayed at 7 p.m. Thursday on theday.com as part of The Day's Throwback Thursday series, complete with coaches, players and alumni chatting about the game and the Play4TheCure initiative via video conference.
Donors can still contribute if they are able at givebutter. com/playforthecure.
All proceeds will be donated to Camp Rising Sun in Colebrook, which is free of charge for campers ages 5-17 who are facing the diagnosis of cancer, and to the Lisa Wentz-Day scholarship fund in memory of the former Stonington softball player who lost her battle with cancer in 1990 at the age of 20.
"What we're living through and sports being canceled is symbolic of the game when you think about it," Houle said. "Life is bigger than sports. Yes, people would like to play, but at the end of the day beating cancer is more important.
"We've all been able to hit the pause button. What's the most important thing? It is family, it is your network, it's a roof over your head. It's almost like the kids can understand the game a little bit better . ... The way we're doing it is close to what my dream was, to raise awareness, to keep the dream alive."
James Greenleaf Jr. Scholarship
Across the region, there are other charities, other memories of loved ones that are traditionally celebrated this time of year.
The 5K River Run for the Fund is held each year on the Saturday before Mother's Day to raise money for the James A. Greenleaf Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund. Jim Greenleaf, a Waterford resident and graduate of St. Bernard School and Connecticut College, died on Sept. 11, 2001, while at work in the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
The race, which was to be held last Saturday, was canceled due to the coronavirus, as was the scholarship fund's annual golf outing scheduled for July 27.
The fund provides scholarships each year for students attending St. Bernard, as well as graduates of Waterford, Fitch and New London high schools.
"He was a three-sport athlete, football and both tracks," said Greeleaf's cousin, Frank Marcille, who is president of the scholarship fund. "We try to pick a scholarship student that's just like Jimmy ... that's what we look for.
"His mom's family, they come down for the race. We meet at 9 o'clock in the morning and we end up making it an all-day affair. I didn't start it. (Board member) Dave McBride is the guy who started it. It was a bunch of his friends who started it. It's something we can remember him by."
On Saturday, Marcille, his wife Sunshine and their four children went and did the walk on their own to remember Greenleaf.
"It would have been 19 years," Marcille said. "It was really weird. That's a long time. Every year we put aside everything that day, sports for the kids, and asked them to do this. It's a time to remember something that's very important."
Donations to the fund can be made at jamesgreenleaf.org, although Marcille emphasizes that he understands fundraising is hardly business as usual.
"Our biggest supporters are local businesses and a lot of things aren't doing well," he said. "How do you ask people for money?"
Lax2Live
Each year during the spring season, Ann and Paul Dagle bravely grab a microphone at high school lacrosse games across the state and speak emotionally of their son, Brian, a 2010 graduate of East Lyme High School and former lacrosse player for the Vikings.
Brian died by suicide in 2011 while a sophomore at Castleton
University in Vermont. He was 19.
This year the list of regular-season games at which the Dagles would speak, part of the Lax2Live initiative, had grown to 16. The Dagles had been invited to their first college game at the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford and, also for the first time, the CIAC state championship games were to serve as a stage for Ann and Paul to talk about suicide prevention.
Ann is the president and executive director and Paul the vice president of the Brian Dagle Foundation, formed in 2014. Ann also serves on the board of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention and on the Connecticut Suicide Advisory Board, receiving her certification in grief studies from the Center for Loss in Colorado.
"I felt bad that message isn't getting out to the kids," Ann Dagle said of this year's Lax2Live slate, which was canceled, as well as this summer's corn hole tournament that was to benefit the foundation. "It's frustrating.
"It's a busy, busy season, but as crazy as it's going to be ... I get so much back out of helping the people I help. To give them the support, that just gives me purpose."
To donate to the Brian Dagle Foundation, if able, visit brianshealinghearts.org.
Ann said that in a recent support group meeting via Zoom video conference, each person was asked to tell her a funny story about his or her late child or show a picture.
What would have been one thing about Brian that made his mom laugh?
"We never knew until the day after he died, we learned that he had gotten a tattoo," Ann said. "Paul had told all the boys, 'You cannot get a tattoo until you're 21 and can pay for it yourself, blah-blah-blahblah.' Well, one of our golden retrievers died and (Brian) got a tattoo of Max. That would have been him. He loved his animals.
"He was ahead of the curve with so many different things." v.fulkerson@theday.com