HHS Boosters’ Giants night out

The stars, so to speak, have aligned for the Healdsburg High
School Boosters Club annual Night with the Giants.
In previous years, the San Francisco Giants have given special
group rates to the Boosters Club for a weekday game—and often late
in the season when the team was already out of contention for the
playoffs. Not so in 2010.
This year’s community outing to AT&T Park—and fundraiser for
sports programs at Healdsburg High School—will be held at 7:15 p.m.
on Friday, Aug. 27 against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Giants are
currently just a game-and-a-half back of the San Diego Padres for
first place in Major League Baseball’s National League West
division, a pennant race Boosters Club president Kim Thompson hopes
will attract a big crowd from Healdsburg.
“This is our first weekend game and we’re hoping it’s going to
increase attendance,” he said. “The reason this game is so
intriguing is because the Giants are still in the pennant race.
This is going to be exciting to watch a pennant race ball
game.”
Tickets to the event are $20. The Boosters Club gets $10, an
amount that adds up quickly. “If we sell 250 tickets, we’ll make
$2,500, which is a big chunk of change,” said Thompson.
The Night with the Giants event is one of five fundraising
programs scheduled for the 2010-2011. “The snack shack at football
games and basketball games brings in about $15,000, the membership
drive is about $15,000 and the golf tournament is about $15,000,”
said Thompson. “We just donated $50,000 to the high school’s 17
sports teams for the coming year.”
The need for the Boosters support, according to the high
school’s athletics department, cannot be overstated.
“If we didn’t have them, we wouldn’t have sports,” said
Healdsburg High School Athletic Director and track coach Jenean
Bingham. “They help that much.”
The Boosters Club nearly a decade ago adopted a funding model
that pays the school’s 17 athletic programs—including
cheerleading—based on the number of students involved, not the
perceived need. In the years prior, coaches would come to the Club
and make their case for money to buy equipment or pay for
trips.
Both the Club and the school’s athletic department say that the
old system put coaches and programs in competition with one another
to get funding, which could lead to bad feelings. “There was some
hard feelings and misconceptions that we would only support some
programs and not others,” said Thompson.
The Club’s solution was to evenly distribute money by athlete.
This year each program will receive $105 for each student who
participates in the program.
For Bingham’s track program, the Boosters’ funding means new
hurdles, poles for the pole vaulters, a cross jump for the high
jumpers and a “big cart that carries mats.”
Greyhound baseball coach Mark Domenichelli spends most of his
budget on safety equipment. “The Boosters means everything to my
program,” he said. “The Boosters have been behind Healdsburg sports
ever since I’ve been here.
With this year’s funding, Domenichelli purchased a batting
cage—”the first one we’ve bought in 11 years”—and safety
equipment.
The upcoming Night with the Giants will help pay for the
2011-2012 athletic program at Healdsburg High School. Tickets to
the game are on sale now at www.greyhoundgrad.com. Tickets
purchased after Aug. 25 must be done by calling Richard Bugarske at
433-1771.