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Collins, Gowanda correctional facilities donate over $1,700 for Make-A-Wish

A charity home run

Submitted photo: The Gowanda Correctional Facility raised $1,705 with the help of Collins Correctional Facility on Wednesday after they hosted the Kool-Aid Classic. From left: Mike Morosey, Collins correctional; Tom Guest and Gary Wiest, Gowanda correctional.

COLLINS — Collins and Gowanda correctional facilities hosted the Kool-Aid Classic and raised $1,705 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The event was a softball game as family and friends took part in raffles, ate food and cheered on the athletes at the two prisons. The teams stood proud at the end of the day as their initial expectations of around $1,000 was nearly doubled.

“It is all about family and all about raising money for Make-A-Wish,” Joe Butler of Gowanda Correction Facility said. “These guys just adopted with the Kool-Aid theme and ran with it and we decided to do this charity ball game with Collins — we’ve been talking about this for a couple years. We put this together in two weeks’ time.”

Butler added that the facilities appreciate the support that each administration gave to the charity game.

The Kool-Aid motto brought together the two facilities. Butler elaborated that when Gowanda opened, after Collins, that many moved into the newer facility. The two were not interconnected all too well and after purchasing a joint facility for training on Route 62, the two prisons worked together. It was the Kool-Aid man who really solidified the bond between the prisons.

But how did a glass pitcher of flavored red water unify the groups?

OBSERVER Photo by Andrew Kuczkowski: The Kool-Aid man stands with an empty pitcher in its left hand behind the softball backstop. The “Kool-Aid Classic” went all out for the one-game event. From a Kool-Aid stand to a massive sign, the correctional facilities didn’t hold back.

“There was this thing going around ‘Make Gowanda Great Again,’ after the election. Obviously, it was President (Donald) Trump’s slogan and somehow somebody had a ‘Don’t drink the Kool-Aid’ sticker, just as a joke. They told him he needed to get rid of it,” Butler said. “So, guys rallied behind it by saying, ‘Don’t drink the Kool-Aid, well let’s Make Gowanda Grape Again,’ as for grape Kool-Aid.”

From there, T-shirts were sold with the slogan on it and it only grew to become a massive billboard on Route 62 to advertise for the softball game. At the event, the Kool-Aid man himself made an appearance as he held an empty pitcher and made the attendees smile through the seven-inning affair.

“Yeah, we probably are about to wrap it up,” Butler said. “It’s generated a lot of interest. After today’s tournament, the sign is coming down and we are pretty much done with it. It will do what we want with it: it will raise money for kids and you can’t go wrong for it.”

The Kool-Aid Classic raffled off a Jack Eichel jersey, sold food and had other raffles to raise funds.

Bill Makuch attended the softball game for one reason in particular: to assist the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Though he retired from the Lakeview Correctional Facility, his daughter Aili, soon-to-be 21 years old, received a Make-A-Wish trip three or four years back.

OBSERVER Photo by Andrew Kuczkowski: Jon Steinwachs takes a hack in the “Kool-Aid Classic.” Collins and Gowanda correctional facilities raised $1,705 for Make-A-Wish.

His daughter was an avid horse fan, and even loved to go as far as collecting model horses. The company Breyer made model horses and Aili wanted nothing other than her horse to become a model. When Make-A-Wish said they would sponsor Aili for a trip or idea that she wanted, putting her horse onto a model display peaked to the top of the list.

“We are in their corporate office where they make the models and we are having a lunch and this woman hands my daughter a package,” Bill Makuch said. “Inside this package was a model of her horse, down to the horse’s front elbow scar. They got the scar on the horse. It was very cool.”

The Collins and Gowanda correctional facility are a part of many donations throughout the years. For one, the state system helped by selling an Orange County Chopper two years ago for $50,000. Locally, the facilities raise funds for Toys for Tots, where they donate around $2,000 in toys to the children’s hospital in Buffalo and also raise money for the American Heart Association. Butler added that each facility has their own initiative and purpose they fund for.

The Kool-Aid Classic was put together in a span of two weeks. In the following years, the correctional facilities hope to bring together other jails and maybe make a tournament between facilities in the hopes of more funds for charity. I think everyone would agree that it would be a home run, despite the score at the end fo the game.

The Kool-Aid man did not speak during the event, but it could be assumed that he would think the event was a success and likely added, “Oh yeahhhhhhh.”

OBSERVER Photo by Andrew David Kuczkowski: The Kool-Aid man gives a high five to Rick Pilarski on second base.

Twitter: @Kuczkowski95

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