The Spring 2018 Sport Public Relations (SMGT 466) class put together several Community Relations projects over the course of the semester.
Owls Fore Charity:
Conducted by Emmanuel Llamas and Jay Burlison. The project consisted of working with First Tee and Owls Fore Charity. Burlison’s and Llamas’ goal was to get financial pledges each birdie recorded by the Rice Owls golf team, give updates after each tournament, as well as put on a clinic with the Rice Golf Team for young children. All of the proceeds would go towards First Tee. The group agreed on a monetary goal of $1,000, a participation goal of 20 donors, and to host a clinic for 25 kids aging from 6-18. The group was able to meet their monetary goal by raising $2,012 with 1 tournament remaining, and their participation goal was also met by having 24 participants.
Strikeout Hunger:
Conducted by Willy Amador, Jorian Clark, John David Johnson, Henry Laenar, and Ricky Salinas. The project consisted of working with the Houston Food Bank. The group focused on raising money for the Houston Food Bank by getting a group of donors to pledge a certain amount of money for every strikeout pitched by the Rice baseball team during a 5-game stretch during the season. The group created a Facebook page and used personal contacts to promote the event. The group agreed on a monetary goal of $2500. The group was able to raise $6,570; $4,070 more than the group’s original goal.
Baseball for Babies (1)/(2):
Conducted by Alexa Davidson, Madeline Frazier, Chance Sarchett, Ben Schragger and Ford Proctor. The project consisted of working with Baseball for Babies organization. The group auctioned and raffled off sports memorabilia to raise money for premature babies. The group has a goal of $2,000 basing it off of last year’s goal of $1,500. The group sold 159 tickets to the game which brought in $715. The group also brought in $5,014 through silent auction and raffle.
Conducted by Mai Pham and working with the Baseball for Babies organization. Mai’s goal was to help with the business plan for Baseball for Babies included a revamped website. Mai’s goal was to strengthen the Baseball for Babies brand and to create an organized platform for success in future events. Mai was able to succeed in her goals by overseeing changes in the website such as, making visually clear who the organizations sponsors where, where donations on the website go, how to buy tickets and how to help with the organization, etc. Mai’s contributions were visibly shown in the before and after analysis of the website.
Laurel Smith and Nicole Iademarco Food Bank project:
Laurel and Nicole decided to work with the Houston Food Bank for their community relations project. The group decided to also work with the Rice women’s basketball team by having a can drive for the Louisiana Tech game. In addition, they wanted to take the entire women’s basketball team to volunteer at the Food Bank but this unfortunately wasn’t able to happen because the Food Bank didn’t have enough volunteer slots. So the group updated their goals to 150 cans and $350 to donate to the Houston Food Bank. At the Louisiana Tech game, the group doubled their original can goal and reached 600% of their original financial goal which was equivalent to 1,800 meals.
Volunteer Appreciation Program:
Conducted by Erin Haney and worked in conjunction with the Texas Children’s Hospital Family 5K Fun Run. Erin’s goal was to enforce why volunteers should continue to get involved year after year. Erin worked for the Houston Marathon, an organization that relies on thousands of dedicated volunteers each year. As a result, it is important for the Houston Marathon to keep volunteers happy and committed. For her event, one of Erin’s objectives was to give two rubber bracelets to each runner, one of which was designed to be given to a volunteer that by each runner to a volunteer. Erin was able to secure the amount of rubber bracelets needed and put together over 1400 bracelets. After the event, a survey was conducted where 100% of the people who volunteered said that they would return to work future events. 93.75 % of the people said that they felt valued in their role as a volunteer.
Old Laces, New Faces: Owls Give their Shoes:
Conducted by Brad Dohner and Sebastian Gonzales. Worked with local Houston high schools, Rice’s track team, and Crossroads at Park Place. The group’s goal was to collect over 250 pairs of shoes to donate to Crossroads at Park Place. The group’s method was to contact local high schools to collect shoes at a track meet being held on Rice’s campus. The group sent out newsletters to different high schools, visited different residential colleges around the Rice campus, and also contacted Rice Athletics to collect shoes for donation. The group also used an unique idea of collecting after “Beer Bike,” cleaning them, and donating them to the Crossroads organization. Ultimately the group collected 183 pairs of shoes. Both members of the group agreed that the experience was a life changing one that they would both carry with them for the rest of their lives.
FIFA Tournament:
Conducted by Brian Wright and Greg Van Kirk with Camp Kesem. The group decided to put on a 16 person FIFA video game tournament to raise money for the Camp Kesem organization. The group had a goal of raising $200 from entry fees Held in the Duncan College classroom and with a Double Elimination format, 1st place was given $50, 2nd place $25, and 3rd place $15. The group was able to meet their goal by raising $205 for Camp Kesem.
Threes to Feed:
Conducted by Lance Wright, Aston Walter, Mallory Radtke, Preston Gordon, Cory Klinger and Destri White. The group worked with the Houston Food Bank and put on a 3-Point Shootout. The format consisted of 30 players where the top 10 players with the highest score would move on to the 2nd round. Three ball racks were set up in a “corner-middle-corner” format. Each player was given 5 balls on each rack with the last being the “money ball” worth two points. If competitors pre-registered for the event, they would get an extra ball during the first round, making it 6 shots per rack. The group reached the participant goal of 30 members and also helped raise over $100 for the Houston Food Bank. The winner was presented with a $50 Amazon gift card.