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Community Service Part Of Our Club’s Mission Statement

A couple years ago this column talked about an NFL fan club which has made community support part of its mission. This revisits that group. It isn’t a bragging piece. It’s more a perspective piece, a purpose piece, a piece to make people realize it’s more than a game to us.

There have been many opportunities that have touched my plate in my life, most of which I’ve used to meet wonderful people, share great times, and create proud and happy memories.

One of those opportunities came about when I had the chance to become president of an international NFL fan club who’d been granted a local charter by efforts of the previous head of the group. I’m speaking of a group of Cleveland Browns fans, part of the Browns Backers Worldwide. According to the website https://fans.clevelandbrowns.com, “The Browns Backers Worldwide is considered to be one of the largest organized fan clubs in all of professional sports with members and clubs established throughout the world. Browns Backers Worldwide exists as a non-profit organization to actively support and positively promote the Cleveland Browns.”

Our group, officially called the Browns Backers of Jamestown, N.Y., has been in existence since the return of the Cleveland Browns back in 1999, after the team left Cleveland for three years, then returned as an expansion team with all team traditions and records intact. Prior to the 1999 return, there was a Browns Backers chapter located in Dunkirk. After the team left Cleveland, at the conclusion of the 1995 season, the north county group disbanded.

As a chapter of the international group, we’ve been hosted by some wonderful clubs and businesses, who’ve opened their doors to us and given the Browns Backers of Jamestown a four-and-a half-month Sunday home each year, to meet weekly and watch our favorite team. Those places include The Marco Polo Club of Jamestown, Shaggy’s in Bemus Point, Game Time Sports Bar, part of the Jamestown Bowling Company, and our present home at Waddington’s Tavern, 344 S. Main St. in Falconer, where owner Jeff Waddington opens his doors to us each week. This allows us to come together, almost as family, to break bread, cheer, commiserate, high five, and be an active part of the community beyond end zone lines, and the four-plus hours, we’re together each week.

The Browns Backers Worldwide is a group that has its own Foundation dedicated to community service and supporting causes of communities connected with the many charters issued by that parent organization. The Browns Foundation awards four $2,000 checks each season to four charter groups selected from the many who apply each year who are trying to support and assist groups in their areas. In 2011, the Browns Backers of Jamestown were fortunate to have been selected for one of those awards in the name of the St. Susan Center in Jamestown. We were very proud and appreciative to have been selected. Since that time, the Browns Backers of Jamestown has expanded its mission of being a loyal, dedicated, passionate football fan club, adding “community servants” to its resume.

The Browns Backers of Jamestown began thinking of continuing an annual donation to the Browns Foundation because of it honoring us with that donation to the St. Susan Center. We also decided to continue our own support of St. Susan Center as well. We basically used our annual $20 dues for the donations, which totaled $300 each person back then. As a group, we discussed doing more and decided to add a third donation each year to be determined by a vote of the membership. To help raise money for that third donation, we held a rummage sale of Browns clothing and memorabilia donated by members who wanted to clean their attics or closets of things they couldn’t wear or use anymore. We also asked the Browns to donate some autographed memorabilia to raffle off trying to make additional money. As things began growing, people attending games each week began making donations to our group to help our cause. With all this, we were able to add a permanent third donation and increase each donation to $500 each. The group didn’t stop there.

Building on the raffle of Browns memorabilia, the Browns Backers of Jamestown, decided to sponsor a larger raffle selling 100 tickets and using whatever items the Browns donated as prizes, then supplementing those with whatever we could get from soliciting our own community in the way of gift certificates, gift cards, service certificates, Browns collectables, whatever we could add to the prize list. From that, some of our own members began donating restaurant, and gas cards for inclusion in the assortment of prizes. Last year we achieved a winner’s possibility percentage of 18 percent of tickets sold. This year, our goal is 20 to 25 percent. Each year, more local businesses have stepped up and become part of our mission. If any others wish to help us help others, please feel free to contact any member of the Browns Backers of Jamestown, N.Y. or stop by Waddington’s Tavern and leave your contact information.

Still liking the practice of voting for another charity or cause, we decided to up the number of tickets we sell, purchase a 50-inch HDTV, and make that the big prize of our raffle. With the increase in ticket sales, we were able to increase the number of $500-donations to three permanent ones and a fourth nominated by, and voted for, by the membership. In event of a tie for the fourth group/cause, as happened this year, we split the $500 into two $250 donations.

Over past years, the Browns Backers of Jamestown, N.Y. has donated repeatedly to The Browns Foundation, St. Susan Center, and A Fresh Start, which is an off-shoot of the Alex G. G. Foulk Fund, both of those last two being local groups. We’ve also donated to groups including the Damon Janes Foundation for Sports’ Injury Research, Kevin’s Krusade, the Chautauqua County Veterans Agency, the Chautauqua County Humane Society, Fight for Seeley, and Team Smags. With the Browns Foundation’s donation to St. Susan Center, we’ve seen nearly $19,000 given to local groups and/or causes.

Along with members of the Browns Backers of Jamestown, N.Y., businesses who’ve supported our mission, and the places we have called our home since 1999, especially the owners, operators, and staffs of the homes of the Backers, we send special shout outs to Scott Kindberg and Matt Spielman of The Post-Journal for rewarding our members hard work and bringing tremendous causes to public eyes by publishing our donation photos each year.

Knowing the storied history of the Browns before the move in 1995, it’s understandable why there are so many fans. Since the move, the Browns have enjoyed a winning season once, these past 20 seasons. Obviously, “storied” has been overtaken by “dismal” to describe the Orange and Brown, and there’s been much more commiserating than cheering these past 20 years, yet we keep coming back each week. There have been many more low heads than high fives these last two decades, yet we keep coming back each week.

We’ve come to finally admit that it is just a game, and win or lose, our lives aren’t going to change much, if at all, once the game is over. But we’ve also come to believe that, because of the community service part of our mission statement, by coming back each week, its more than a game to us, and maybe our lives aren’t going to change much by our showing up each week, but maybe there will be some lives that may change by our showing up each week.

We extend anyone, and everyone, an invitation to join us at any time during the NFL season and share our mission with us.

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