My Ole Mans had a record season this year. Due to the efforts of many dart players, headed up by Joe Kush and "the one man army", Jim Beck, our dart players were the single most giving unit.

Back in October, many donations were given to our charity fundraiser yard sale/bake sale. The collective total, including dart donations, was $879. Some of the donations from the dart players carried over to our big events in December.

We had a raffle and auction on December 5th, for the Marcus House, a crisis center for children, headed up by director Bonnie Cohn. This is our third year participating in this worthwhile event.

We were introduced to this event by Jerry Crivello of the Sure Fire Band. He had been organizing this event in conjunction with many other local bands for a few years and had found himself without a location to have it in when he called My Ole Mans. We were more than happy to help. That year, we raised $1,000 for Bonnie. Last year we beat that total, bringing in $2,500.

This year, we expanded to a two-part event. Part one was held on December 5th at My Ole Mans, and featured Jim Sharp from KTAR Radio, and the following six bands; The Bank, Texas Toast and Jam, Ragen River, Is Not Is Too, Scott Willcotte and Grey Wolf.

All of these bands donated their time with very little encouragement from us. Many of them have played for this fundraiser more than one year also.

The auctioneer, Mel Butts from Cave Creek, did his usual fantastic job. Our own Jim Beck donated a brand new gas dryer for the auction along with several other prizes. Proceeds from the sale of cheeseburgers went to the Marcus house also, as did t-shirt proceeds.

Part Two took place a Romans County Line on the following Sunday. The bands there featured Sure Fire, Phil Hendricks, The Heat, Dana Matthews, Rendezvous, and Bret Kaiser as Elvis.

Everyone at Romans got an added bonus, too. A gentleman in the audience from the Arizona Diamondbacks (I'm sorry, I didn't get his name) donated two press box passes for any Diamondbacks game for auction. Mel was able to get a cool $1,200 for them!

There was also a lady bidding (again, me with no name to thank) who donated an additional $500, even after losing the bid. We, of course, would like to thank those people for their generosity.

A great time was had by all at both events, which raised a collective total of $5,662. Wow! That will be hard to beat next year.

In addition to The Marcus House event, My Ole Mans adopted two families for Christmas. We received information from each family, which included names, ages, sizes, wants, needs etc. Once again, the My Ole Mans Dart Family rose to the occasion. The dart players alone raised over $1,000 in cash to help fill the Christmas lists. All together there was a total of $3,000 in cash and material donations.

We delivered the goods to the families, who were very thankful and somewhat at a loss for words.

But there was more. After the delivery, we heard of a little seven year old girl who could use a little help. In came a turkey from one man and still some additional donations were given. We took the remaining bit of money and purchased some clothes, shoes and slippers for her.

Another man donated a bike, and then some toys appeared. That family was overjoyed on Christmas Day and said it was the best Christmas ever.

We at My Ole Mans would like to thank any and all of the people who had a small or large part in making this Christmas season what it was. You all should have the warm fuzzy feelings for your thoughtfulness and generosity towards others in their time of need. Thanks!