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Posts Tagged ‘donations’

It begins, again

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , on August 4, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Coupeville fans await the start of a new school year. (David Svien photo)

The calendar turns to August, and the countdown begins.

As we sit here Sunday morning, there’s 17 days until the start of fall football practice (Aug. 21), with cross country, volleyball, tennis, cheer, and soccer all officially ramping up Aug. 26.

The Coupeville High School booters are first to take the field, with a jamboree in Oak Harbor Sept. 5, while the Wolf football squad gets the first official game a night later at home against Port Townsend.

After that, we’re fully into the 2019-2020 school year.

Coupeville Sports turns seven years old Aug. 15, so this will be the eighth school year in the history of a blog which has already run 7,111 articles (as of this one).

If you’re new to this, here’s what to expect, based on the last seven years.

If I stay focused, I’ll produce 75-100 articles a month going forward, covering all CHS and Coupeville Middle School teams, as well as local community sports.

This will be a mixture of game and feature stories, and I try and report on every game either the same day it happens, or by the next morning.

Our unwritten agreement is that when you get up in the AM, and have your coffee, or cold cereal, or your coffee in your cold cereal, if it’s that kind of morning, you’ll be able to read about everything which happened the night before.

Sports-wise, at least.

I operate on my own and am NOT EMPLOYED BY THE SCHOOL DISTRICT.

If you have an issue with anything I write, you’ll get much further by talking to me than by harassing administration and/or coaches.

Email me at davidsvien@hotmail.com, message me on Facebook or talk to me at a game.

The same works if you have a story idea.

Coupeville Sports, unlike the local newspapers, operates without a pay wall.

Always has. Always will.

If you want to read for free, so be it. But, if you like what I’m doing and want to be part of my support group, even better.

If you want to help keep my fingers pounding away into the wee hours of the morning, donations are greatly appreciated and can be done in person, by mail (165 Sherman, Coupeville, WA), or through PayPal.

Here’s a handy-dandy link:

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme2/DavidSvien

I’m not a non-profit, but I don’t make much profit. And I’m fine with that.

So, onward we go, into a new school year, the second, and, most likely, final one in the North Sound Conference.

Will CHS, one of the smallest 1A schools in the land, be granted its freedom by the new classification counts and return to 2B after many years?

Who will be the CHS Athlete of the Year winners? My money is on Maya and Sean Toomey-Stout pulling off a family daily double.

There’s a thousand other questions lingering — some big, some small — all waiting to have their answers documented on the bloggiest blog in all of Cow Town.

Here … we … go.

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“Blueberries for Bloggers,” and other ways to support my work

Posted in Ranting and Raving, tagged , , , , , on January 30, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Like the Wolf cheer squad, which made me this t-shirt, you can support Coupeville Sports.

I believe “Coupeville Sports” is unique in the state of Washington, as I have yet to stumble across a blog, newspaper or magazine which matches my output.

We’re talking:

*6,674 stories in six years and five months, an average of three stories a day, every single day.

*Knowing, without a doubt, weekday or weekend, when you sit down for your cold cereal or coffee, I stayed up until 2 AM so there would be a story on EVERY game played the night before, fresh ‘n ready for your peepers to scan before you head to school or work.

If that means some athletes get to read about their game while still on the bus ride home, even better.

*Extensive coverage of JV, C-Team, middle school and community athletics to go along with high school varsity, plus coverage of drama productions, Science Olympiad, band and other non-sports topics.

*Side projects including the creation of the school’s Wall of Fame, revamping the football record board, and last year’s 101-year anniversary shindig for Wolf boys basketball.

*A guarantee there will NEVER, EVER, EVER be a pay wall on the blog.

My business model obviously makes no sense, but I have been able to pay my limited monthly bills thanks to the goodwill of my readers, including some who root (or play) for schools other than Coupeville.

If you want or need to read for free, no worries.

But, if you want to be one of those saints who keep my fingers clicking in the pre-dawn hours, while YouTube pumps out a mix of Daft Punk, Queen, and Glen Campbell, and I scream at Facebook for repeatedly blocking my efforts to tag parents on links to my stories, there are several easy ways:

1) You can buy an ad – $100 and it’s good for the life of the site. Which could be another 25 years or another 25 minutes. Still better odds than the lottery.

2) Join the “Blueberries for Bloggers” initiative, a probably entirely made-up thing where you keep your local writer from contracting old-school scurvy by tossing fruit my way.

Maybe “hand” and not “toss” would be a better plan…

3) Donations, whether it’s a pile of sticky, pre-licked pennies (thanks and … ewwwww) or whatever number feels right.

And hey, if someone donates $5,000, essentially paying my four core bills for a year, I’ll attach advertising for your business to my soccer mom van and conveniently leave it parked/abandoned in public view as often as possible.

So, call my bluff, Black Press, the Canadian-based conglomerate which owns Sound Publishing, which runs the Whidbey News-Times and South Whidbey Record.

For $5,000 (one wax job on one of your owner’s yachts, probably) you can continue financing local journalism, while making me publicly advertise the very newspapers which are technically my rivals.

Oh, sweet irony.

 

Want to donate?

Hit me up in person at a game, mail me at 165 Sherman, Coupeville, WA 98239 or use this handy link:

https://paypal.me/DavidSvien?locale.x=en_US

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Step up, with school supplies!!

Posted in Fundraisers, tagged , , , on July 31, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Your go-to place for donating school supplies for Coupeville students in need.

It’s the time of the summer to donate.

Cascade Insurance Agency runs its annual Backpack Project Aug. 1-15, and you can help by bringing them school supplies which will be passed on to Coupeville students in need.

Swing by the office (404 S. Main, right next door to the grocery store) any time between 9 AM-5 PM, Monday through Friday, and there will be handy-dandy donation boxes awaiting you in the front office.

New school supplies (pens, glue bottles, backpacks, notebooks, you name it) is the name of the game, and a warm feeling in your chest is the reward.

If you can’t stop by during normal business hours, call 360-682-2162 or email shelli@cascadeinsuranceagency.com to make other arrangements.

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Do it for the kids!!

Posted in Fundraisers, tagged , , , , , on February 18, 2018| Leave a Comment »

   Central Whidbey Cooperative Preschool teacher Tami Aparicio (fifth from left, back row) hangs out with her lil’ buddies. (Photo courtesy Mandi Murdy)

Won’t someone think about the children?

Central Whidbey Cooperative Preschool, a beloved local institution for more than 40 years, has helped generations of children grow, and its work continues.

CWCP, which is a non-profit, is getting ready for its biggest fundraiser of the year, the “Wine, Bids & Co-op Kids” event Mar. 24.

The event, an evening of appetizers, music and a silent auction, will run from 6-8 PM and is intended for those 21 and older.

The funds raised go to lower the cost of tuition for enrolled families, replenish the CWCP scholarship fund and purchase school supplies.

There are numerous ways for the public to help, from buying tickets (just $10 a pop), bidding on items, and through donations, either monetary or with items which can be auctioned off during the evening.

No item is too big or too small, and could include just about anything — homemade, hand-crafted, a service, gift certificates, gift baskets, etc.

All donations are 100% tax deductible, and individuals and organizations will be acknowledged at the event, on Facebook and through a public message to the families which use CWCP.

Plus, if you donate an item for the auction, you nab two tickets to the event for free.

To purchase tickets or make donations, contact Mandi Murdy at 360-632-2069, Tami Aparicio at 360-632-5071 or email cwcpfundraising@gmail.com.

And to get a feel for everything the co-op preschool accomplishes, pop over to:

http://www.coupevillepreschool.org/

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Help me reach the goal!!

Posted in Fundraisers, tagged , , , , , on September 11, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Your pocket change can push me over the goal line. (David Stern photo)

I’m never getting that indoor/outdoor swimming pool with the waterfall in the middle.

That’s just reality.

Maybe if I was writing about food like my sister, or if I could churn out best sellers like Stephen King.

But, when I chose to focus on small town sports, I kind of knew the closest I was ever coming to a waterfall was rigging a garden hose over the back door.

So be it.

But while I’m not here for the money, I do need some pocket change to pay my (very pared-down) bills.

I’m managed to stay out of the dish pits for two-plus years now (my fingers say a silent prayer of thanks each night), and I’d like to keep it that way.

This past weekend, from Friday night to early Sunday evening, I was able to cover CHS football and girls soccer games in person and churn out 10 articles, something I couldn’t have done if I was juggling a “real world” job with Coupeville Sports.

Right there, waiting for you to marinate in while you ate breakfast Saturday, was an in-depth and first-hand account of the Wolves epic gridiron shellacking of old-school rival La Conner.

After that, the articles kept coming, from a cancer fundraiser to a feature on a Wolf cheerleader with Downs Syndrome to a look at Coleby Fleming’s aerial adventures in Norway.

Plus cross country, volleyball and soccer results (mere moments after play finished), fresh football stats, league standings for all CHS varsity teams and much, much more.

I’m not going to be modest here.

I am your fastest, most in-depth (some might say obsessively so) news source on Whidbey Island, and I give it to you without a pay wall.

Want to support me? Great. Want to read for free? Great.

As this new school year kicks into gear, I’m going to make one fundraiser plea.

I’m not a TV evangelist. I won’t be back asking for more each week.

Plus, I mean, I don’t have enough hair anymore to slick it back, Joel Osteen-style, anyway.

One request, and then we all move on with our lives.

And it’s this — if you like what I do, if you appreciate what I do, if you want to help make sure what I do continues, think about showing that support.

Your donations, whether they are one-time or repeating, are the life blood of Coupeville Sports.

Whether it’s loose pocket change or enough to build that swimming pool (I can dream…), you make all of this possible.

If you’re so inclined, there’s a donation button at the top of the blog.

If you don’t like PayPal, my mailing address is 165 N. Sherman, Coupeville, WA 98239, or you can slip something into my pocket at a game (though maybe not your discarded candy wrappers).

OK, that’s it.

I appreciate your support more than you know, and this is the last time this school year you’ll hear me asking for donations.

After this, I’ll be too busy writing real stories.

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