Saturday [May 21, 2011] was the highlight of my year. We hosted our first Skeet Reese Kids Fishing Day in the community where our girls go to school; Meadow Vista. Kim and I have always wanted to do a kids event, but we didn’t really know how we wanted to do it. When we talked about doing a combination kids fishing day / fundraiser for the Community Center in town; we decided to do it.I have to give Kim most of the credit for pulling this event off. We decided to do it months ago, and with my travel schedule, she did most of the work and planning. It’s basically been a full time job for her for a while now, and she really pulled it off with a lot of attention to detail and a great deal of professionalism; I’m really proud of the job she did with it.
We got a lot of comments from people about how things went, and when they found out it was our first event like this; they were shocked. Even with Kim doing such a great job, there’s no way we could have done it without the help of the community and most of all; our family and friends. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this possible.
Saturday was amazing; we had pre-registered more than 300 kids for the day, and way more than that showed up to fish. The families kept coming and everyone seemed to have a great time enjoying the fishing, the fun, the food and the music.
I’m not sure how much money was raised for the Meadow Vista Community Center; we haven’t even had a chance to think about pulling figures together with unpacking from the event and life going on today. I’m sure that it will be something we’re happy to present to help get the Community Center on its way toward completion; but for me that wasn’t the best part of the day.
I got to see kids having fun doing what I love – fishing. With so many kids’ activities being about video games, computers and television these days, fishing is a lost family activity. I was introduced to fishing when I was young, and it inspired me to want to fish for my whole life, and we shared that love with a lot of kids Saturday.
I don’t know how many kids caught their first fish on Saturday, but it was a lot. It seemed like every time I went down by the pond, another kid, or their parents were telling me that it was their first fish; that meant so much to me.
I don’t know if anyone will turn fishing into a career like I was inspired to do when I was a youngster by the event on Saturday, but if one boy or girl learned that fishing was fun enough to make a lifelong hobby; then it was worth it to me.
A lot of hard work, preparation, energy and passion went into planning this event. Kim and I put a lot into this, but so did a lot of other people who really helped make this an amazing day; and I really want to thank them all from the bottom of our hearts; it wouldn’t have happened without you:
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