Feb-06

27th Annual Celebrity Dinner & Sports Auction Recap

POSTED BY: Barry Bonds in FOUNDATION

February 6th, 2015 – This past Thursday, The Guardsmen put on The 27th Annual Guardsmen Celebrity Dinner & Sports Auction at the Fairmont San Francisco. With all three World Series trophies on hand, the event focused on celebrating another World Series victory for the Giants in 2014. The event was supported by current Giants Sergio Romo, Javier Lopez, George Kontos, Matt Duffy and Joe Panik. Former Giants legend Barry Bonds served as the Sports Auction honorary chair, bringing a new level of excitement to the event.  The Guardsmen partnered again with the Giants Community Fund for this event and thanks to our supporters we raised close to $350k! This was a record year for the event in terms of money raised and guests attending (450).

In addition to having a great line-up of celebrities, we had one of our very own – Derick Brown – speak during the program about how he personally benefited from The Guardsmen Campership Program. As a new Guardsmen member in-waiting, Derick’s story about coming full circle from Ernest Ingold Clubhouse to graduating with honors from UC Berkeley was inspiring to the audience and made a huge contribution to the night’s fundraising success. The night also featured an onstage Q&A with Bonds by Guardsmen member and 95.7 The Game host Damon Bruce where Bonds lit up the room and shared his own reflections on the impact mentors had on his upbringing.

The highlight of the evening came just before the auction, when Barry Bonds borrowed the mic from auctioneer Graham Crow and kicked off “the pledge” where he asked attendees to match his $5,000.00 donation to the fundraising total for the event. It was an impromptu gesture that got the crowd more and more vocal as Bonds called on Giants players in attendance to join him in pledging to the Guardsmen and Giants Community fund. In a matter of 2 minutes, with some needling of fellow Giants, Bonds raised $70,000.00 for at-risk youth in the bay area.

None of this would have taken place without the hard work of event chairs Mike Hall, Josh Myerberg, Victor Thomas and James Holder as well as a dedicated committee of volunteers who helped in all phases of planning and day-of execution.   The Guardsmen would like to thank Giants Community Fund Executive Director Sue Petersen and her team who helped us create a record breaking event.

Lastly, We’d like to thank our Gold Sponsor, BTIG for their generous support. BTIG is a global financial services firm specializing in institutional trading, investment banking and related brokerage services. With sophisticated, multi-asset class capabilities, BTIG delivers client solutions.

Source:

http://guardsmen.org/ on February 6th, 2015

http://guardsmen.org/27th-annual-celebrity-dinner-sports-auction-recap/