A Few Pics I Just Found in my iPhone

Playing Around After Setting up Friday Night

Everyone Got a Certificate

Keeping Track of Participants

Martial Artists Fighting Hunger Collects 641 Pounds of Food for Second Annual Hunger Action Month

Martial Artists Fighting Hunger and Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, in conjunction with Feeding America and 450 other food banks participated in the Second Annual Hunger Action Month during September. The goal of this promotion is to mobilize people everywhere to get involved with fighting hunger in America.

One in Eight Americans struggle with hunger.  That’s why Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida and Martial Artists Fighting Hunger teamed up to host the gauntlet, a series of athletic challenges for martial artists. The food bank provided volunteers and helped with publicity on their website, twitter, and other social media. Thanks to the efforts of Paul and Ginger Allen, Channel 6 in the Orlando market, covered the event on the local evening news.

Martial Artists Fighting Hunger hosted the event on Saturday, September 5, 2009 at Lyman High School as part of the national push for food donations. . Over 641 pounds of food was donated as well as $260 dollars. Second Harvest is able to provide $9 in meals for every dollar collected.

The challenge event was called The Gauntlet© and was created for this event. Basically, competitors completed a series of ten challenge stations with others in their weight class and belt level. Points were awarded. C.J. Vickers, the martial artist with the most points, won. C.J. is a well-rounded martial artist and a national champion in sparring and forms in taekwondo. Eosin Pather, maker of custom martial arts belts, donated the championship belt.

Volunteers from martial arts schools all over Florida pitched in and helped staff the stations. Wendi Turnbull of 2 Dog Photography took pictures, GA & Associates did publicity. The Taekwondo Club at the University of Central Florida sent volunteers as did many other schools and clubs. Master David Turnbull of DC Turnbull Taekwondo Taekwondo served as tournament director.ComBATON the Martial Arts Team Sport, was the major sponsor and rented the Lyman High School Gym for the event.  Additional information about sponsors is available on the event blog.

Everyone got a tee shirt and the feeling of satisfaction of helping others by participating. Participants enjoyed the camaraderie of spending time with other martial artists and the possibility of winning the Eosin Panther Black Belt.  Everyone agrees that the event was a big success and is looking toward a repeat of the event next year.

The Gauntlet or Adventures with Code Enforcement

Kitty’s Photos are Posted on MAFH’s Facebook Page.

Wendi’s Photos are Posted on Facebook

The mats are back in storage, the equipment is [mostly] back to its owners and everyone who attended Martial Artists Fighting Hunger’s first Gauntlet© says it was a big success.  Martial artists came from all over Central Florida and at least one from as far away as Chicago, Illinois. Although the final numbers are not in yet, it was a good day for Second Harvest.

The participants enjoyed the gauntlet and many positive comments were made.  Quite a few people wanted to know if this would be an annual event so they can bring others next year. There was a lot of positive energy as shown by the large number of volunteers. Second Harvest sent volunteers as did DC Turnbull TKD, Allen’s Martial Arts, KICK USA, the TaeKwonDo Club at UCF, comBATON, and Sifu Dave Lewis.

Elliot Smithson who trains at Fortress Hill and Elvin Lopez who trains with DC Turnbull, willingly dressed up as a Samurai and a Ninja respectively for photo ops and saved the day by help to promote the event with an ad hoc  battle in front of the school after code enforcement took our signs because they were on the wrong side of the sidewalk. Kitty made nice with code enforcement and got the signs back. Nedra Dietz, Kitty’s friend, took over getting the signs back up, changing some of them to make the directions more clear and hanging the banner up so people could find the entrance.

D’Axel Vargas wore his chicken suit adding to the festival atmosphere and Tommy Robertson did a great rendition of MAFH’s logo in sidewalk chalk near the entrance. Both are students of DC Turnbull. Kitty of comBATON spent most of the day applying temporary tattoos on kids and adults alike. Popular music played in the background.

Ginger Allen of GA & Associates, along with her husband Paul, personally visited the local tv stations and got Channel 6 [WCPX]  to come out, no mean feat on a hot sports news day. The evening local news featured the event showing Ninja Nick of Dragon’s Dojo doing his signature flips and Josh Stetchenfinger of Deep Underground TaeKwonDo tricking as well. Both news anchors on the show earned black belts in their teens and were quite supportive of the event.

Master David Turnbull used his extensive organizational abilitites to set the competition up as Tourament Director. Master Wendi Turnbull took pictures and pitched in wherever help was needed. The event pre-planning was composed of David Turnbull, Wendi Turnbull, Paul Allen, Ginger Allen and Steve Blanton. Kitty Breed took care of social media on the MySpace page, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, YouTube, Openzine, SitePal, the Event Newsletter and Online Registration.

The competition was stiff at times and the finalists ended up competiting for a total of four rounds. The Gauntlet winner was CJ Vickers, a fourth degree blackbelt in Taekwondo and national champion on the AAU Taekwondo circuit.  He received a custom made black belt donated by Eosin Panther, maker of beautiful custom martial arts belts. All of the finalists also received a plaque donated by DC Turnbull TKD and a sling bag containing a hat, water bottle and tee shirt from comBATON. Everyone who participated was given a tee shirt proclaiming “I Faced the Gauntlet” on the front and “and helped fight hunger” on the back and a certificate of completion designed by Master Paul Allen of Allen’s Martial Arts. 

Sasha Hausman of Second Harvest was quite happy with the donations collected and will be sure to put them to good use. If anyone wishes to make an online donation for the event, click here for a link to Second Harvest’s secure website.   Unlike many charities, Second Harvest applies 97.1% of monies collected directly to getting food to people in need.

There were so many people that pulled together to make this work and we did not get the opportunity to thank all of you personally. Thank you to all of you. If you have stories about the event you want to share and/or suggestions for us to take back and use for planning next year’s event, please send them to MartialArtistsFightingHunger@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

In closing, the event was successful. We learned a few lessons along the way, one being about lawn signs, and more about stepping up the pace of the event. All in all, it was a great chance for martial artists of all disciplines to come together and share their love of the art. New relationships were forged and old ones were strengthened. I think a tradition was born…