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The Greatest Save: About 500 attend event to raise awareness for kids' safety
Participants in the KinderVision Celebrity Golf Benefit have reasons to smile as they helped raise money for The Greatest Save Celebrity Experience initiatives for protecting children in southeast Michigan, including classroom materials and interactive events. (Photo submitted by Patrick Murray)
Orchard Lake St. Mary’s Preparatory School and Edgewood Country Club in Commerce Township recently played host to a number of baseball greats in order to raise funds and awareness for children’s safety.
The inaugural The Greatest Save Celebrity Experience event took place on Sunday, Aug. 12 and Monday, Aug. 13, and included a youth baseball clinic, a banquet and golf outing with former Detroit Tigers players along with an appearance by Baseball Hall of Famer and The Greatest Save National Spokesman Rollie Fingers.
The Greatest Save is a non-profit crime prevention program that is supported nationwide by law enforcement officials and is also a recognized charity of Major League Baseball (MLB) with the goal of protecting children and teens from sexual exploitation, abduction, molestation and human trafficking.
The organization educates through age-appropriate safety DVDs, on-site events, online interactive activities and quizzes, classroom materials, and online safety messages.
“The Greatest Save is designed to be an umbrella for law enforcement, families, schools and businesses to come together for the protection of kids,” said Doug Sebastian, founder of The KinderVision Foundation and a former Michigan State University student.
The Greatest Save is a division of KinderVision, an organization that was launched in southern California in 1991 after the kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old San Diego resident Leticia Hernandez.
Thanks in part to the outreach of former Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim owner Gene Autry, KinderVision eventually started working with Major League Baseball and the organization eventually grew to include offices across the country.
Commerce Township resident Patrick Murray is a member of The Greatest Save Founder’s Council and an Edgewood Country Club member who worked along with his wife, Joan, to help organize the events in Commerce after meeting Sebastian and his wife at a similar event in Florida.
On Aug. 12, a free youth baseball clinic was held at the Orchard Lake St. Mary’s baseball complex, where children had a chance to improve their baseball skills with the help of former MLB players by working their way through nine stations.
“(Former Tiger) Ray Herbert was there giving pitching lessons, and Tom Timmerman from the 1969 Tigers was also there,” Murray said. “We had 203 youth players participate and an equal number, if not more, spectators. So we had about 500 people at the clinic.”
Also in attendance was former Tigers player and University of Michigan baseball coach Don Lund.
One of the stations was set in the dugout and was known as “The Greatest Save” station, where each child was interviewed on camera. The interview was then put on a DVD that also included age-appropriate safety information.
Adults on hand were also invited to participate in a safety survey in order to receive better insight.
Later that evening, a banquet and auction were held at Edgewood, where a number of signed MLB memorabilia items were available for auction, including jerseys signed by Al Kaline and Bob Gibson and signed pictures of Hal Newhouser and Charlie Gehringer.
One of the items auctioned off was The Greatest Save baseball that was autographed by Baseball Hall of Famers Fingers, Goose Gossage, Dennis Eckersley and Bruce Sutter, along with closers Lee Smith, Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera.
There was also a special 45-minute question and answer segment with Fingers and Darrell Evans, a former Tiger who hit 414 home runs in his MLB career.
“Those guys could have talked for hours because the (attendees) were completely enthralled,” Murray said.
He added that Fingers skipped a 30th anniversary reunion of his 1982 American League champion Milwaukee Brewers team that weekend in order to participate in the festivities in Commerce.
On Aug. 13, the Pro-Am Golf Tournament took place at Edgewood with five-person teams. Each team had a former MLB player, including Fingers, and an awards luncheon was held afterwards.
The funds raised at the event will go toward The Greatest Save’s initiatives for children in southeast Michigan, including classroom materials and interactive events.
Both Sebastian and Murray declared the event as a success and dates have already been scheduled for next year’s celebrity experience — July 21 and 22.
“We’ve extended invites to Al Kaline and Jim Bunning to join Rollie in the Hall of Fame Q&A,” Murray said.
For more information on The Greatest Save, child safety and future celebrity experiences, visit thegreatestsave.org.
3 Responses to The Greatest Save: About 500 attend event to raise awareness for kids' safety
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crazy townie
August 24, 2012 at 7:46 pm
#18
” An interesting fact about white people is that they firmly believe that all of the world’s problems can be solved through “awareness.” Meaning the process of making other people aware of problems, and then magically someone else like the government will fix it.
This belief allows them to feel that sweet self-satisfaction without actually having to solve anything or face any difficult challenges. Because, the only challenge of raising awareness is people not being aware. In a worst case scenario, if you fail someone doesn’t know about the problem. End of story.
What makes this even more appealing for white people is that you can raise “awareness” through expensive dinners, parties, marathons, selling t-shirts, fashion shows, concerts, eating at restaurants and bracelets. In other words, white people just have to keep doing stuff they like, EXCEPT now they can feel better about making a difference.
Raising awareness is also awesome because once you raise awareness to an acceptable, aribtrary level, you can just back off and say “Bam! did my part. Now it’s your turn. Fix it.”
So to summarize – you get all the benefits of helping (self satisfaction, telling other people) but no need for difficult decisions or the ensuing criticism (how do you criticize awareness?). Once again, white people find a way to score that sweet double victory.
Popular things to be aware of: The Environment, Diseases like Cancer and AIDS, Africa, Poverty, Anorexia, Homophobia, Midde School Field Hockey/Lacrosse teams, Drug Rehab, and political prisoners.”
AJ
August 26, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Yes, white people like to raise awareness.
By doing so, they also typically raise a lot of money.
That money then often goes to fund all kinds of research.
That research can then lead to all kinds of solutions for all kinds of problems that we all face.
So the way I see it, you shouldn’t be hating on the white people because no doubt you yourself are benefiting in many ways from all of their raised awareness.
crazy townie
August 28, 2012 at 7:47 pm
Check the chair person for the Org in question…What is their salary?
Rollie Fingers needs a job, I get that but let’s not pretend that he’s doing anything beyond entertaining old sports geeks.
Millions of t-shirts and pink and yellow cancer awareness bracelets cured nothing but they did make huge profits for those who manufactured and distributed the items.
Awareness has become an industry. As far as money funding research, the research budget at Susan G. Komen is less than the budget for salaries and advertising. Awareness paid Komen’s CEO in excess of a half million dollars in annual salary but is no closer to a cure.
http://www.awarenessdepot.com/bracelets1.html