2016 Charity Du Jour Wrap Up. $10,000 raised.

The 2016 Saint Louis FC home schedule has come to an end and along with it our 2016 Charity Du Jour program.  For the last 11 home games we picked different charities and collected donations and put some of our merchandise proceeds to our weekly pot. The St. Louligans don’t have anything quite as formal as a mission statement, but if we did, giving back to our community would be a part of it. We recognize how fortunate we all are to be able to get together and have a few beers and cheer for our team. We want to help others in our city experience a little joy or relief from their problems just as we do at soccer games.  We’ll continue to use our small platform to make a difference at the games and beyond.

Last year we had one big fundraiser. This season we switched it up and tried to spread the love to many different worthy local causes.  Over the course of 11 games we raised $5,271. This was all small donations and individual contributions. We didn’t solicit any sponsor donations, we just relied on the kindness and generosity of our members.  For our final match, the St. Louis Area Foodbank was our chosen charity. The front offices of Saint Louis FC & World Wide Technology contributed another $5000 to our total of $1640 raised for the day. STL Foodbank can turn $1 into 4 meals for needy St. Louisans. So our total of $6640 raised for them translates to 26,560 meals. That’s incredible. Thank you all for your gifts. Thank you to Saint Louis FC and World Wide Technology for your big donation. And thank you to Schlafly for donating liquids to help us up our total yesterday.

Adding everything up for the year our Charity Du Jour program raised $10,271 in 2016 for the charities we picked that have made some sort of impact on our lives in St. Louis. Amazing to think about how our little group has grown over the past six years and what we’ve been able to accomplish all the while having too much fun. We’ve always done small charitable things, even back when it was 15 of us drinking beer on sun baked bleachers, but we’ve truly taken it to a whole new level. Over the past two years with STLFC we’ve managed to raise close to $25,000 for good causes. I’m beyond thrilled to be associated with such great people.

In closing I just want to thank every single one of you that has come to a game, made a donation, participated in efforts to grow our group or just sat back and enjoyed what we do.  We couldn’t do it without you. I also want to thank all the great teams that have really worked with and supported what we do for the past 6 years and in turn have helped us become the group we are today.  Saint Louis FC, St. Louis Lions, Fire & Ice SC, FC Bordo, Illinois Piasa and even AC St. Louis.  We do it for you and you do it for us. Thanks again.

In the words of Kurt Vonnegut- “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” We try and we’ll keep trying.