Net54baseball Dinner 2013- The VERY BEST thing about it.

[Leon]

As everyone knows this year at the 2013 Net54baseball Dinner at the National it was a little different. While it has always been free in the past, and will most likely be in the future (when we have them), there was a non-mandatory donation accepted at the door of $5 each. I am very happy to announce we raised $825 at the dinner. The next morning I was having breakfast with some other attendees and told them how happy I was that we were able to raise $825 for our fine four legged friends. One of the very kind members, and attendees at the dinner, told me to make it an even $1000...and immediately gave me a check for $175 as a donation. That is what this board is mostly filled with, some of the best people on earth. Thanks to that individual, it was actually brothers who donated it, and everyone else who donated.

That being said I now "had" some decent money to hopefully help animals that have been abused and/or abandoned by humans. Right after I got back from the National, a few days later, our family went on a road trip from Dallas to South Padre Island. When there we went to a place called the South Padre Island Dolphin Research and Sealife Nature Center. When I walked in to the place I met a young 20ish year old girl that was running the center. She had a tiny, baby mockingbird (the Texas State Bird) on her shoulder. She said she was nursing it back to health and it was responding very well. As I looked around the meager setting I could see what was going on. The place was very clean, well maintained and took in almost every imaginable kind of animal that needed help. "There was a $3 donation per person upon entry to the place and it was a charitable organization. I could tell all of the animals were well cared for and happy. It was a great place and had lots of rescued animals. It was such a great place that I gave the girl $200 earmarked from the Dinner to help animals. I know it went to a great cause.

http://spinaturecenter.com/offer/sealife-center/


Next, we got home and received a fortuitous piece of mail from an organization called Straydog.org. After reading up on it, and seeing what they were doing, I made a $300 donation to them.

http://straydog.org/


And last but certainly not least, I just now made the final donation of $500 to the original cause I had talked about, Animals Abused & Abandoned.


http://animals-abused.net/

If any animal lovers want to get a few tears in their eyes while seeing who we helped, just click on any of those three links and read a little bit. Thanks again to everyone's generosity. BTW, we also had several members donate before the National because they wanted to help too. We had one want to donate afterwards but I said no because it wasn't just about raising money, it was about the Net54baseball Dinner bringing the money in. The offer was appreciated but the main focus was giving from the event. Thanks again folks!! Ya'll have made some animals very happy.