This past weekend I had a very special opportunity thanks to @mrsbozz and a generous donation she received from the local Native American tribe near where we work. As a school social worker, my wife's primary focus is on the mental well being of the children in her building. She recognizes though, that sometimes the mental health of the students is tied directly to the mental health of her staff. With that in mind, the past couple of years she has been writing a grant to the local tribe to receive money to do fun activities with the staff members in her building.
The grants are in place because several years ago, the tribe built a casino near our school district. The way I understand it, at the time, the tribe had the choice to either pay taxes on their earnings from the casino or they could take 2% of their slot profits each year and donate them to a charitable cause.
Obviously, the second option is the better choice, not only does it look good for them, but it also allowed them to build up the infrastructure in the communities around their facility. New roads, emergency vehicles, and buildings have all been acquired over the past decade or so because of the casino. The school district we work for gets just shy of $100,000 per year between two grant cycles. It has been amazing.
Since we work for a public school district, there are state and federal regulations in place that dictate how and what we can spend our budget on. For good reason of course, the public probably wouldn't like it very much if they found out their tax dollar were going towards soda and snacks for the staff members or them taking a field trip to a hockey game as was the case this weekend.
For that reason, the grant dollars become necessary. Those can be spent without restrictions (for the most part), so the continuation of this mental health initiative is very dependent on those funds. She still makes staff pay for their own alcohol if they choose to imbibe, but food is provided by the grant.
As you may have guessed, this past weekend @mrsbozz rented out half of the "party deck" at our local minor league hockey venue so we could catch a game between the Saginaw Spirit and the Kitchener Rangers. The events are held at the Dow Event Center. I have written about this venue before, so I decided not to throw this on #worldmappin. The venue includes an arena as well as a full theater.
You might remember from my past posts, this is the same venue where I had to part with my beloved Leatherman multitool that I had carried with me over over two decades. I was smart enough to leave my new Leatherman at home this time!
It was their annual "Shocks and Saves" charity night, so before the game in the red room they had a panel of doctors and health professionals discussing the importance of CPR and heart health. They had stations set up where kids and adult could learn to do CPR as well as other information. Through this charity night they have been able to place something like 400+ AED machines in schools and public places throughout the state in hopes of preventing heart related fatalities.
As I said, we had to share the party deck with another group, but they kept it pretty well segregated and we didn't have too much interaction with the other group even though they were clearly right there. While @mrsbozz originally had 30 people interested in coming, some of them bailed out at the last minute, so there ended up being only about twenty of us on the party deck.
With an ice cold Coors Light in hand, I settled in to enjoy the game. As of puck drop on Saturday night, Kitchener was third in the league while the Spirit were closer to fifth or sixth in the league, so I wasn't really sure how the game was going to go.
They have a "fanboni" that drives around the middle of the ice with fans on it waving to the crowd while the real zambonis drive around the outer edge and work the ice until they can complete the whole thing. I'm not sure how you get to rid on the Fanboni, but the crowd seemed to love it. Of course, before the game they bring the flags out and the Canadian National Anthem and the American National Anthem are preformed.
I wouldn't say the venue was packed, but it definitely filled in as it got closer to game time. They have a ton of different little areas that you can rent out. If my wife had known so many people were going to end up not showing up, she might have tried to get us one of the corner spots.
As it was, I think we all had a really good time sitting on the party deck. It definitely gives you a unique view of the action.
The Spirit jumped out to an early 3 - 0 lead, but the Rangers were able to chip away at it in the second period and eventually go up 4 to 3. In the third period, the Spirit were able to find the net two more times to make the score 5 to 4. It was close at the end as Kitchener pulled their goalie to get an extra man on the ice but Saginaw held strong to earn the 5 to 4 victory.
It was a really great night with some of the staff that we don't normally see outside of work. I know that they all appreciate the efforts that my wife puts in to help keep them from jumping off a bridge! We are in the heart of the school year right now. After that Christmas break, it's a long haul until Spring Break, so having events like this where teachers and staff can let off a little steam is so important.
Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports
