After its “Strike Out Parkinson’s” fundraiser homecoming weekend, the Student Athletic Advisory Committee, SAAC, raised $2,000 in honor of former Head Baseball Coach Greg Bradley and the fight against Parkinson’s disease.
SAAC president senior Eddie Carrillo said the committee donated the money to Oregon State University.
“It definitely surpassed our expectations,” Carrillo, senior, said.
Set up in a tent in tailgating section at the homecoming game, coaches, students and faculty members offered themselves as targets to cream pie tosses. Passersby could throw a pie at a coach or person of their choice for $2.
The event was modeled after the national project “Pies for Parkinson’s,” which operates in a similar fashion.
Carrillo said the event was very well received and supported.
In addition to the eight coaches, four professors and five staff members who volunteered as targets, the basketball team donated all of the pies and Sports Information Director Blake Timm put information about the event in the homecoming media sheet and donated a portion of the media sales to SAAC.
“Events like this show that we want to bring the whole school together and support our Pacific family,” Carrillo said.
Carrillo said Bradley was very supportive and appreciative of the fundraiser when SAAC approached him with it.
“He laughed and said we should tell his wife because she would pay the most to throw a pie at his face,” Carrillo said.
This is the second year SAAC has been a part of a philanthropic project after raising money for breast cancer research in honor of Head Football Coach Kieth Buckley’s wife.
“We like to support causes that affect us here on this campus,” Carrillo said.
Senior soccer player Emily Tuffey, senior softball players Kaitlin Shikada and Kylee Oshiro were the other leadership committee members that planned the fundraiser with Carrillo.
“Kaitlyn and Emily really took hold of this event when Kylee and I started the season,” Carrillo said. “They put in a lot of hard work.”
When Carillo took over as SAAC president in 2013, the committee didn’t do any philanthropy work due to small numbers and stretched resources.
After starting a leadership committee, Carrillo said it gave him the much-needed support he needed to expand SAAC and what it offers the campus.
“We want to show students that we care about more than our sports,” Carrillo said. “We are all about making this a better place to be.”
“Strike Out Parkinson’s” is not the last philanthropy work SAAC will be doing this year; Carrillo said it will help out a lot with the special Olympics in the spring.
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