WHITEHALL — Whitehall High School’s Vikings First initiative staged the first of what’s intended to be an annual event last Thursday evening, throwing a summer kickoff party at Goodrich Park.
The new initiative is headed up by Stacy Shepherd, a former Whitehall teacher. Stacy’s husband Matt is a Vikings boys basketball assistant coach, and their children Graycen and Sidney have competed for Whitehall teams; Sidney is a rising senior and Graycen plays football for Northern Michigan University.
“It was actually her idea,” Whitehall athletic director Christian Subdon said; attempts to reach Shepherd were unsuccessful. “We’re trying to bring family fun events together rather than just typical fundraising. We’re trying to make it fun things to do with your family for a good price. We provided a lot of those things at no cost. It gets everybody involved. We really want to show we’re one community.”
The idea behind the fundraising event, and Vikings First as an initiative, is to prevent a cycle where parents and athletes need to participate or donate to fundraisers, such as selling discount cards, on a regular basis during the school year. The group is also planning a golf outing July 20 as an additional fundraiser, replacing what was previously a football-specific event. Vikings First’s second annual steak fry is slated for February, and the group is selling $100 raffle tickets on an ongoing basis. (If enough people purchase them, the cash grand prize could get as high as $10,000.) More ambitious long-term goals include eliminating the costs to participate in sports team summer camps and, ideally, eliminate pay-to-participate fees as a means to fund athletics.
“It can be a drain for families, and we want to make athletics something everybody can do no matter their situation,” Subdon said of the tangential costs of sports participation.
As Subdon said, most of the available entertainment at last Thursday’s party was provided at no cost due to event sponsors. There were inflatable bounce houses, face painting, and live musical performances. Dinners for adults and kids were sold and served as the main financial draw for the athletics group.
Subdon said the turnout for the event was around 500 people, and 120 chicken dinners were sold, numbers that exceeded the group’s expectations.
“The community has been great with it,” Subdon said. “They’ve been very supportive of what we’re doing.”
Subdon emphasized Shepherd deserves the credit for the success of the event.
“Stacy put in an incredible amount of work on this, an incredible amount of time,” Subdon said.
