By Diedre Ayers and Aziza Alexander, Columbia High School (CHS) Boys Basketball Booster Club Co-Leads

“And that’s another PPG3!!!!!!!”

What is a PPG3 you may ask? Well, if you are reading this blog, you know that the Pollock Properties Group’s mantra is Care, Serve, Give. A ‘PPG3’ is the CHS Basketball embodiment of that.

Vanessa and pitched her the idea of entering the SOMA sports world by being the first ever community sponsor of the CHS Boys Basketball team. I think her yes took about 2.2 seconds then she got down to business “Diedre, how can we make this about the boys but also interactive, so the fans are involved too?” And so, the Pollock Properties Group 3 was born (PPG3). For every 3-pointer the Varsity boys scored during home games (see the 3 connection now?!), Vanessa and the Pollock Properties Group would donate $100 up to $5000! We were blown away by this offer and so the season began…..

Research shows that kids who grow up around generous role models, grow up to be more generous adults in their community. Vanessa and her team ARE those role models. They didn’t just say “hey sure…do this and we’ll give that.” They showed up at games, they supported the boys, they promoted our games to the community….they invested their TIME which is the best investment they could actually ever give. And the boys got excited as well! Every game they’d be like “how many 3s did we hit?” They wanted to hit that 50 goal!

We invited Vanessa to our end of year banquet and what she said stuck with so many of us “I recognized this season that you [the players] are already generous. I saw you be generous with your encouragement, helping hands, with your plays and how you supported each other. That is GIVING. My hope of you is that when you grow up you remember what it felt like to raise this money as a team. To work hard together, and encourage each other and that as a collective, YOU made a difference. I hope you give your time, your wisdom, your compassion and yes, I hope you give your money to the causes and community you care about.”

What a beautiful message to leave with these young adults. And to top it off, those young adults made 49 out of 50 home 3-shots (IYKYK) and collectively raised $5000 (she spotted us the extra $100 )! This money will go towards new gear, new equipment, our end of year banquet …. it will go towards things that will be daily reminders of what they did as a TEAM. There aren’t enough words to say THANK YOU to Vanessa and the Pollock Properties Group!