By Rachael Rennie
The opportunity to give back to our nation’s veterans has struck a chord in New England – especially in the coastal town of Duxbury, MA. “Nothing we can do as parents, can live up to experiences like this,” explains Denis Sovik, a lacrosse dad and coach in Duxbury as he talks about the reason he signed his team up for Shootout for Soldiers Boston.
Duxbury lacrosse has had a successful reputation on the field in Massachusetts for quite some time and their large program has produced numerous high school All- Americans. Denis describes the community as very involved with the all of the youth programs, that the parents are always looking for ways to give back and teach the children in the programs how to earn money.
“Nothing we can do as parents, can live up to experiences like this”
The critical work of the event’s beneficiaries is what drew Sovik to Shootout for Soldiers. The boys have planned fundraisers throughout the season including selling candy at home lacrosse games, bake sales at the games. Sovik’s kids even held a lemonade stand a few weeks ago.
The boys have planned fundraisers throughout the season including selling candy at home lacrosse games, bake sales at the games.
Sovik and his wife are highly active in their children’s school and sports. Denis coaches lacrosse and his wife is involved with just about every school board or school related committee. Although highly involved in coaching his kids, Sovik does lack a Facebook account, so he asked his wife for permission to post the link to the team’s Shootout for Soldiers fundraising page.
“I posted the link to our Crowdrise page, and a small blurb about the event at about 9pm, within 24 hours we had raised around $1500,” Sovik notes. With donations coming from family, friends, college roommates, the team even got donations from an associate in Botswana! The team has currently fundraised well over $3000 from donations alone, and they still plan to carry out the fundraisers they had previously planned.
The program had wanted to get involved last year, but was not able to attend. Dennis was impressed with the story behind the event, and explains that he wanted his children to experience an event like this, that is run by such a young group of people .
“Hearing Tyler’s story made me want to get involved. I hope my kids hearing a story like this inspires them to do something similar when they are older. I appreciate young people having the foresight to do something this important.”
“Giving the kids a platform to give back and learn about where the freedoms they have come from, well that’s another experience in itself.” Sovik explains how he hopes the kids who are involved will be affected by seeing the men and women who have fought for our freedoms.
“Giving the kids a platform to give back and learn about where the freedoms they have come from, well that’s another experience in itself.”
He wants the kids to see that the veterans are the ones who, “Give us so much more than what we can give them, and this is the best way to express gratitude for the people who sign up to serve their country.”
So far he’s been quite successful in getting that message across, nice job Duxbury Lacrosse Club!
