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155 members of the AWC Athletic Department (including AWC Athletic Director Jerry Smith; head coaches James Pryor, Kenny Dale, Kelly Green & John Stratton; assistant coaches Tom Fox, Jerry Dominguez, Shan Williams, James Johnson, Humberto Gonzalez, Lance Von Vogt, Keith Majors, Aaron Cheatwood, Jay Van Wassenhoven and David Slaughter; athletic trainer Chris Murphy; and AWC Sports Information Director Jim Howell) were joined today by nearly 80 employees of Wal-Mart, 20-25 from Circle K, 12 from Sam's Club, 5 from KBLU/KTTI/KQSR as well as approximately 10 members of the AWC facilities staff and photography department, 5 bus drivers and approximately 5 members of the families of AWC Athletics personnel. The volunteers dug in and handled 37 different community projects (more than double the workload of last year’s event) for non-profit agencies throughout Yuma, Wellton, Somerton, the Foothills and even El Centro, California, over the span of just six hours. Agencies such as Yuma Community Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, Yuma Homefront Optimist Club, Imperial Valley Red Cross, Saddles of Joy, East County Guardian Angels, Yuma Ballet Theatre, Helping Hands, KCFY Radio, Yuma WORC Center, Crossroads Mission, the town of Wellton, City of Yuma Parks & Recreation, Yuma Family YMCA and Schechert Family YMCA and the Boys and Girls’ Club of Yuma opened the doors for the volunteers to help them get some much-needed tasks completed. “This was an amazing effort by so many hard-working people,” said AWC Athletic Director Jerry Smith. “We worked very hard on this ourselves, but the work of Frankie Ahumada, Kathy Perales, Kevin Ladek, Allan Atalig, Jin Porter and Candy Nelson from Wal-Mart; Bobette Young and Retta Springer from Sam’s Club; Derek Gurney from Outback Steakhouse; Pat Abiles and Walter Richter from Southwest Gas; Angela Anger and Sonia Nunez from Circle K; and Jeff Harris and Russ Egan from KBLU/KTTI/KQSR for the past several months to help get this event set up was paramount in the event’s success. Plus, the energy that all of our team leaders and all of our volunteers put forth today really made it special.”

KBLU, KTTI, and KQSR provided public service announcements in the weeks leading up to the event; Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club provided breakfast bags for the volunteers this morning before the event; Southwest Gas provided equipment and work gloves for the volunteers; Circle K provided water and ice throughout the day; and the day culminated at Yuma’s Outback Steakhouse, whose staff provided all of the volunteers to a great meal and great service after the jobs were completed. “We said we were going to ‘rise to the challenge’ today, and that’s exactly what we did,” James Pryor told the hundreds of volunteers at Outback Steakhouse this afternoon after the event. “Remember that wherever you go, you’re going to take a piece of today with you. Champions. You’re all in that category today.”

Story Courtesy of Sports News Southwest