Local sports teams are proving that even the smallest acts of holiday kindness can go a long way for someone.
Durant, Plant City and Strawberry Crest student-athletes have spent much of December making a difference in the community, whether it’s through volunteer work or simply throwing a Christmas party for less fortunate kids and families.
Strawberry Crest High School and Bailey Elementary School have long been friendly neighbors, sharing space on the same little corner of Gallagher Road in Dover. Crest’s baseball team continued the trend Thursday night when it hosted a Christmas party for some Bailey students and their families.
“We started it last year and got plugged in with Bailey,” head coach Eric Beattie said. “There’s a couple of kids that don’t get a whole lot for Christmas the way most of my players experience Christmas.”
This year, Beattie and the Chargers hosted a party at Beef ‘O’ Brady’s in Seffner for six kids and their two families. They brought the families in to the decked-out banquet room for a night of food, fun and gifts. Players chipped in their own money to help make the holiday special for everyone there.
Beattie said the annual Christmas party is the team’s way of wrapping up its early fundraising season, as it spends the fall fundraising for events like this one.
Plant City’s boys and girls soccer teams went to Burney Elementary on Tuesday to hang out with students and give them candy as a follow-up to their Burney Bronco Bash appearance around Halloween. The boys also volunteered at the United Food Bank of Plant City this week, spending several hours at the facility after they finished taking exams. Boys assistant coach Trent Lott, who owns the Plant City branch of College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving, is heavily involved with the food bank through the Food Bank Fridays program he created and helped put the PCHS volunteer day together.
“This is something new,” boys head coach Caleb Roberts said. “We’re at a point where we feel like we should give back more … (Lott) loves it, so we’re trying to get hooked up and make it a more regular thing, really. Try to get over there once a month.”
The PCHS basketball programs are going to volunteer on Christmas Eve at the Christmas in the City event at Snowden Park, where the teams will serve food cooked by girls head coach Danny McIntyre to those who attend from 2 to 5 p.m.
On Dec. 7, three Durant teams joined forces to give hundreds of people a Christmas party they won’t soon forget. The football, softball and baseball teams partnered with Cater Tampa, Ed Morse Cadillac and the Brandon Chamber of Commerce to host an event for kids and families in Camelot Foster Group’s network.
Football offensive line coach Wesley Wyatt said the athletes each spent around $20 on gifts and combined with the efforts of members of the community, bought enough gifts that every child at the event got one toy to unwrap that night and one to take home to open on Christmas. He added that the athletes and kids also got to dance together and spend time getting to know one another — an experience he said was humbling for the Cougars.
“Once they started talking to the kids they were like, ‘Coach, I’m gonna cry,’” Wyatt said. “It was cool to see their facial expressions when they were interacting with these kids.”