George Guido: Community showed up for annual Pack the Park fundraiser

By: George Guido
Saturday, September 3, 2022 | 4:51 PM

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Kudos to everyone involved in the quick action last Monday to switch the planned Kiski Area outdoor volleyball event to the high school gym.

The outdoor venue at Vandergrift’s Kennedy Park was to be the site of the second annual Pack the Park fundraiser for the Choose to Serve Foundation, initiated by Tim Toy in honor of his late wife Ellen, longtime local volleyball coach and educator at Leechburg High School and elsewhere who passed away in 2016.

The weather looked like it was ready to cooperate, but the high humidity and overcast skies created thunderstorms, and the venue had to be moved to Kiski Area High School, about two miles away.

A nice crowd showed up at the gym, though it surely wasn’t the same as the outdoor grass court setting would have been.

“The community always shows up,” Toy said. “We’re lucky enough to have the folks from Norwin pivot with us, stay with it, and come out to the gym. We were excited to do it outside, and that’s always optimal.”

Toy said the foundation was going “really well,” though no preliminary figures were available from Monday’s event.

“We can pay attention now to some kids who need our (financial) help,” Toy said. “I don’t have to search real hard for kids who need our help. I have a lot of great stories about how that happens.”

Toy relates a story from Colorado where his niece, Chelsea, happened upon a woman who was on her porch crying because her daughter, Riley, made a club volleyball team, but she couldn’t afford travel and other expenses. The foundation has helped her out for three years.

One of the purposes of the outdoor court in Vandergrift is to get people playing volleyball in what amounts to “pick-up games” to learn the sport.

“It’s always refreshing to me to go by it and see people bump the ball around,” Toy said. “We want kids to get involved on their own. It allows kids to find love for the game.”

Fox Chapel plays No. 600

Fox Chapel will play the 600th football game in school history Friday when the Foxes visit Norwin.

Oddly enough, none of the 599 games already played was against Norwin, though both schools have always been in the higher enrollment classifications. Fox Chapel (0-2) will come into the nonconference game with a 226-365-8 overall record.

While Fox Chapel never has made it to a WPIAL title game, the Foxes have been in the semifinals in 1977, ’83, ’84 and ’97.

Incidentally, Fox Chapel gets its name from German settler John Fox, who came to the area in 1831. His daughter, Eliza Fox Teats, donated land in her father’s name in 1892 to the Methodist Protestant Church to build a “chapel.”

Tags: Fox Chapel, Kiski Area