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By DAN CHECK; Times Leader Sports Correspondent
Sunday, March 24, 1996 Page:
—
Kay Pettinger pondered the inaugural Bowl for Kids’ Sake Bowlathon.
“There were just a handful of bowlers when it first began,” said Pettinger,
who has been with the Big Brothers/Big Sisters chief fund-raising event for 14
years. “We started at Chacko’s East in 1982, but needed to move to a larger
establishment two years later.”
Times have certainly changed.
Pettinger was on hand Saturday to assist many of the local bowlers
participating in the bowlathon held at Stanton Lanes in Wilkes-Barre.
Over 1,400 bowlers comprising nearly 300 teams bowled in the charity
fund-raiser hoping to raise an estimated $85,000 to benefit the Big
Brothers/Big Sisters of the Wyoming Valley.
“This is our biggest fund-raiser,” said Ron Evans, director of Big
Brothers/Big Sisters. “The Bowl for Kids’ Sake Bowlathon provides Big
Brothers/Big Sisters with 45 percent of our annual budget and will help us
better serve the 250 children in our local program.”
Big Brothers/Big Sisters is a national organization with more than 500
affiliated agencies. The program pairs up boys and girls from single-parent
families with a big brother or big sister and helps them make the difficult
transition into adulthood.
Evans said the annual budget for the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program is
approximately $120,000, and only $20,000 of that amount comes from state
funding.
“The Bowl for Kids’ Sake Bowlathon is extremely important to our budget,”
added Evans.
To meet its budget, Big Brothers/Big Sisters relies as much on the local
businesses as it does on the members of the community.
“There are four sources of revenue we’ll use to reach our goal today,”
Evans said. “There are the corporate sponsors, the lane sponsors, the league
bowlers and those bowling today during the bowlathon.”
Prior to the bowlathon, participants went out into their communities and
solicited pledges, either a flat dollar amount or a per-pin amount. Some
bowled with their families and friends, while others formed teams consisting
of their co-workers.
Joe Makarewicz, chairman of this year’s bowlathon and executive
vice-president of Offset Paperback, made sure his employees got involved.
“We have 660 employees and we asked them to be a part of this,” Makarewicz
said. “We were able to field six or seven teams.”
Makarewicz is in his second year with Big Brothers/Big Sisters and set his
hopes high for this year’s fund-raiser.
“Big Brothers/Big Sisters is wonderful for the community and the children,”
said Makarewicz, “I’d like to see us raise a record $100,000 this year.”
Before the start of the bowlathon, awards were given to the corporate
sponsors for this year’s event. Times Leader president and publisher Mark
Contreras was on hand to receive the corporate sponsor award for the
newspaper’s contribution to the bowlathon.
“The Times Leader has supported the Bowl for Kids’ Sake for the past six
years,” said Contreras, “This is the least expensive and best way to keep kids
off the street.”
Also sponsoring the bowlathon were Pepsi, Magic 93, Offset Paperback,
Boscov’s, The Law Offices of Rosenn, Jenkins and Greenwald and Hospice
Community Care.
Former WNEP-TV anchorman Nolan Johannes was also honored for his work,
especially his long-running television segment called Wednesday’s Child.
Other celebrities taking part in the bowlathon were Magic 93’s Frankie
Warren, magician Pat Ward and former Minnesota Viking Ray Yakavonis.