SEWARD COUNTY SAINTS/LADY SAINTS GIVE BACK YET AGAIN

At a time when most college aged students are in bed recovering from their Friday night adventures, 30 Seward County Saints and Lady Saints student-athletes were giving back to their community. As part of LEAD'S First Big Give, members of the Seward County Volleyball, Tennis, and Softball teams came out to Blue Bonnet Park Saturday morning to teach the youth of the community how to play their different sports and sign autographs for those in attendance. An approximated 2,500 people attended the event which was put on by the graduating members of the 2009 LEAD class, a community leadership group which went through classes and activities together through the past three months. The "Big Give" was completely free of charge and had a number of different activities for attendees including the sports clinics, autograph stations, limo rides, jumping castles, and free food among others. The food station seemed to be the most popular of all as LEAD members served over 750 burgers, 400 hot dogs, 500 bags of popcorn, and 1,000 snow cones.

The event was just another community service activity that SCCC/ATS student-athletes participated in, completely on their own will. The volleyball team taught young players a number of different skills in the sand volleyball pit at the park while the Men's Tennis team had their hands full all day long with youngsters lining up to learn how to hit a forehand or backhand from some of the country's finest NJCAA players. The softball team arrived fresh off their double header sweep of nationally ranked Butler, which put them in the driver's seat to the Jayhawk West Conference Championship, to sign autographs for many children who were ecstatic to receive a free SCCC All-Sports Program signed by the team. "For us coming here from Brazil and receiving all of the support we do, this is the least we can do. To come out for a few hours and share our love for the game of tennis with the youth of the community and maybe turn one of these kids into a tennis player is exciting for us and something that we more than enjoyed" Saints #1 Tennis Player Diego Abreu said. Volleyball player Adriann D'Amico said "when I was a kid and we had college athletes do things like this it was the coolest thing in the world. So for us to be able to do this and give that feeling back to these kids, it makes it all more than worth it to us."