By Gail Wood
The touchdowns will just have to wait.
Because of a scheduling snafu, the inaugural Fire & Ice charity flag football game won’t happen Saturday at South Sound Stadium.
Deciding who’s better at tossing TDs – firemen or cops – will just have to wait.
“Tentatively, the game has been rescheduled for June,” said Miguel Stansberry, a Lacey detective and event coordinator. “That might work out best anyway.”
For 15 years, the annual charity game hosted by the Lacey police and fire departments has been a basketball game. The money raised goes to two programs – Adopt a Family and Make a Day.
With Adopt A Family, they provide a Thanksgiving and a Christmas for about 20 families.
“For Thanksgiving, we buy the families a turkey and all the fixings,” said Stansberry, who came up with the idea of the charity games 15 years ago. “For Christmas, we go shopping and buy gifts. And Mr. Harn plays Santa and hands out the gifts.”
A week before Christmas, the Lacey fire and police departments deliver the gifts in a Santa mobile.
“We bring everything already wrapped,” Stansberry said.
The Make A Day program is a fund used to give a needy person a helping hand. It’s used for random acts of kindness like filling up someone’s gas tank, or putting someone up in a hotel for a night.
But instead of scoring touchdowns for their charity fundraiser, they’ll score baskets. Again. In October or November, the annual Fire & Ice basketball game will be played. Stansberry, who has played in all 15 charity games, is one of the originators of the charity games.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Stansberry said.
And it’s for a good cause.
But Stansberry said that this year’s game will move to a local high school, saving the charity fundraiser gym rental fees and enabling them to pocket the money raised with concessions.
Kevin Davenport, who is with the Lacey Fire Department and is one of the coordinators of the charity games, said they always try to get local activities involved. In the past that’s included dance teams, martial arts classes and cheerleaders. That helps bring in more people. Davenport said the charity basketball games have been averaging about 700 fans.
But Stansberry said the attendance has been dropping a little the last couple of years.
“That’s why we decided to play the football game,” Stansberry said. “We were hoping to get a bigger crowd by doing something different.
To help boost turnout for the charity flag football game with six players on a side, Stansberry said the local high school football teams were going to be introduced at the game. Also, a couple of the Seattle Sea Gals were going to be at the game. However, the flag football game got bumped to June because the youth football games are scheduled for Saturday.
“It’s unfortunate we can’t play Saturday, but that’s the way it goes,” Stansberry said. “We’ll just play it in June.”
The Lacey fire department leads the basketball series 10-5. At least, that’s according to Davenport’s recollection. But he said it’s really not about the final score. It’s about helping struggling families and giving them something to smile about on Thanksgiving and Christmas.
