 Planning for the 4th annual Ryan Grace Memorial Baseball Tournament is underway! Registration will open soon; in the meantime mark your calendars and get organized!
August 8-9, 2020 Fountain Bluff Sports Complex 2200 Old State Highway 210 Liberty, MO 64068 Ages 7u-14u (*based on your FALL 2020 classification) Cost: 7u-8u MP - $300 9u-12u KP - $375 13u & 14u KP - $400 High School - $550 (Updated 04/17/2020) This is an open roster event. Put a team together and come enjoy a fantastic weekend raising money for an incredible cause! Specific rules, pitching limits, etc. will be shared with coaches as the event nears. 50/50 raffle, autographed memorabilia, gift cards, and so much more will be available to enter to win! *ALL PROCEEDS WILL ONCE AGAIN BE DONATED TO MIDWEST TRANSPLANT NETWORK IN HONOR OF THE ORGAN DONOR AND 3-YEAR-OLD GUARDIAN ANGEL, RYAN GRACE HAMPEL. Help us to beat last year's donation: $10, 349.90! To steal a quote from the mother of an organ donor in a Sports Illustrated article: 'The best thing from the worst thing doesn't erase the worth thing; it just makes the worst thing mean something.'
For me, the opportunity to put together an event that brings people together and raise money/awareness for organ donation is my 'something.' When a defining moment comes along, you either define the moment...or the moment defines you. I have been invited to present the funds raised from Ryan's tournament ($10,349.90) to Midwest Transplant Network on December 6th during their organizational meeting. I will be given the opportunity to talk about the little hero whom this is all for, and I'll be speaking about the tournament and the incredible folks who have helped me thru the entire process. I share all this to say THANK YOU again to each and every one of you who contributed, donated, sacrificed, and/or allowed your child to be a part of the event. I look forward to the opportunity/challenge of doing this all again next year, and I hope your experience this year warrants your interest in participating again next year. 💜 I apologize this is coming out so late. I was waiting on a check from one of the food vendors and the order of T-shirts (and the invoice for them) was delayed slightly due to school starting. The place I order them thru was inundated with football and other back to school orders.
All those excuses aside I have a grand total. Full disclosure, I have held back $500 to help eliminate some of my out of pocket expenses for next year’s event. All total, the amount we will be donating from this year will be $10,349.90!!! We did $10k, I didn’t think it was possible! There are literally dozens of folks I owe a THANK YOU to, most notably Kathy Cain-Espeland for organizing and scheduling all my volunteers. To all my umpires, thank you for giving your time to me. Every single one of them gave at least part of their pay back to the cause, many of them working for free. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that gesture! Lastly, to Heather Hampel: thank you for putting up with me. The frustration, excitement, joy, and exhaustion of all this adds up. The patience you show throughout is what helps me stay balanced. Love you! If you ordered a shirt at the tournament, they came in today. I’ll be contacting you to meet up and get them to you in very short order! 💜💚 Stay tuned for the check presentation to Midwest Transplant!! This year’s event will be held Sat and Sun, August 10-11. It will be at Pleasant Valley Road Athletic Complex in the KC Northland. All proceeds will go to Midwest Transplant Network again this year. Ryan Grace was an organ donor, and bringing awareness to such a cause is the most important piece of the weekend.
-50/50 and prize raffle will be on site (and you can purchase tickets now for it) All credit cards accepted thru Square! -T-shirts and racerbacks are available to purchase -Food truck and snow cones on site both days -Cowtown Mini Donuts available on Sunday! -Midwest Transplant will be on site -Admission is $5, under 8 is free -Games start at 8:30 both days Thank you for being a part of a wonderful event and bringing awareness to a great organization!! 💚 We are back and better than ever!! :)
Only 10 more days until the Tournament!! The first order of Ryan shirts are in and ready to be picked up. If you would like for us to hold on to them until the tournament, we certainly can. Or, reach out to Heather or I and swing by to grab them! YES, we will do another order of them after the tournament. We will have a table set up by the admission table to get your order in. Lastly, we will still take any sponsorships/gift cards to throw into the 50/50 raffle! Thank so much! Good morning everyone.
I am still looking for teams for 10u and 12u age divisions! 9u is full and I've had to turn teams away, and 11u is at 6 teams with 3 'maybes' currently. I've capped each age on a certain number of teams to avoid playing late into the evening on Sunday for the bracket. No one wants to play baseball at 10pm on a Sunday night to turn around and go to work!! :) Other info, big day yesterday: baseballs, field insurance, medals, and restrooms (big deal, I know!) all confirmed yesterday. Plus, 2 new additions to the 50/50 raffle: a SIGNED Travis Kelce football AND jersey with certificates of authenticity (plus I know the person who asked him to sign them.) Lastly, I'll be reaching out to teams today with different options on how to pay their registration. Venmo or PayPal is best, simply because they don't take a percentage of the funds, but other options are available depending on how you have your team account/funds set up. Have a great day! I am on the hunt for sponsorship/donation of gifts. Last year, we had multiple restaurants and businesses offer gift cards/vouchers, and we also had small business owners put together packages to win as well (hair care, Thirty One bags, free oil changes, etc.) A thank you to Matt Joslin last year for the heavy lifting in this department.
We put everything in as part of the 50/50 raffle, and we will have the same kind of setup this year. (A silent auction is difficult since the teams who make the championship games get last dibs on bidding.) JUSTBATS.COM sent a $100 gift card which will be part of the bucket of prizes this year! For those businesses who don’t have a monetary prize like a gift card to put towards prizes (real estate, insurance, title company, etc…) we have a different way you can donate this year: For $100, we will place a sign/banner/poster you would like to provide on the fence in the facility. (I can provide my tax ID for donation purposes if needed.) This will give your business exposure for the weekend, and most importantly provide a wonderful donation to the cause. If anyone has contacts they could share this with, please do so! Multiple signs will have a better price for those interested. |
AuthorUpdates from the tournament organizer, Ryan's dad, Matt Hampel, and his amazing wife, Heather. 
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