Update on Luke

It has been a busy spring and early summer for all of us at The Luke Pier Foundation. We finished the softball tournament in May and are happy to announce that we raised over $2,000.00 for our cause! Thank you to all of our supporters and teams. And a special thank-you to our sponsors, Community One Bank, Piedmont Natural Gas and Boatsman, Gillmore & Associates!

Luke had another appointment at Johns Hopkins a couple of weeks ago. He received good news about the aortic aneurysm (dilated aortic root) - it is still a good size for his body size and age! They want to continue monitoring him, of course, but he is okay for the time being.

Luke will need a different kind of surgery within the next 12 months, though. He will return to Johns Hopkins to undergo the Nuss procedure. Some people who have connective tissue disorders also develop pectus excavatum (or sunken chest). They want to perform the operation on Luke before he gets much older. Because he is still young (he's 15 now), his bones are still pliable and will adapt to the operation much better than if they were to postpone it. We are thrilled that he will have the opportunity to fix his chest and cannot wait to see the results. We will let everyone know more as the surgery gets closer.

We will be working on the plans for our next fundraiser in the coming weeks. If you have any ideas about fundraisers that you think would be successful and draw a crowd, please leave a comment or send an email to info@thelukepierfoundation.org.

As always, thank you for your support!

People Are Talking!

We are excited about our 3rd Annual Softball tournament tomorrow, & we're even more excited to read that people are talking about us!

SJB Weddings & Events has been a sponsor of The Luke Pier Foundation since our inception, & they're still talking about us after all this time! Click here to read their great post about us!

We're also being talked about on our new Twitter account. If you are on Twitter, feel free to follow us! Our ID is @TLPF, & we post updates about our fundraisers as well as important info on the latest news & research of connective tissue disorders.

Thanks again, SJB Weddings & Events, for your continued support!

Your Chance to Make a Difference

We now offer four options for our softball tournament sponsors! If you are interested in sponsoring our 3rd Annual Softball Tournament, please contact us at info@thelukepierfoundation.org. Thank you!

$1,000 Level - Grand Slam Sponsors

• Logo on www.thelukepierfoundation.org


• Link to your website


• Brief paragraph about your business on www.thelukepierfoundation.org


• Top level logo on volunteer t-shirts


• Top level logo on sponsors banner displayed at tournament

$500 Level - Home Run Sponsors

• Logo on www.thelukepierfoundation.org


• Link to your website


• Mid-level logo on volunteer t-shirts


• Mid-level logo on sponsors banner displayed at tournament

$300 Level - Triple Sponsors

• Link to your website on www.thelukepierfoundation.org


• Lower-level logo on volunteer t-shirts

$100 Level - Base Hit Sponsors

• Your company name on www.thelukepierfoundation.org


• Your company name on volunteer t-shirts

Payment Methods

• PayPal *preferred method (Select the 'Donate Now' button below, or on our website, to sponsor the tournament)


• Check


• Money order


• Payment must be received by April 25, 2009

The Softball Tournament is the Foundation’s largest fundraiser each year and is crucial to our operation. We have set an aggressive goal of raising $35,000.00 in 2009. We need your support to reach this goal. Funds raised this year through the tournament will be used for the following:

• Funding for life-saving scientific research focusing on, but not limited to, connective tissue disorders
• Funding to individuals for medical treatment they may not otherwise receive due to limited resources or a lack of health insurance
• Encouragement to individuals with medical needs

Thank you for your support!

Volunteers Needed

We are looking for volunteers for our 3rd Annual Softball Tournament on May 2, 2009. Volunteers are needed to help us:

• Pass out flyers at local ball fields to advertise tournament
• Make phone calls to potential tournament sponsors
• Tournament set-up & tear-down
• Entrance gate (collect entrance fees & direct teams to the check-in tables)
• Food service during tournament
• Track games & report final scores back to main table
• Other tasks as needed

We will work with your availability! Please contact Katti (katti@thelukepierfoundation.org) to sign up!

It's That Time of Year!

Contact us to sign up your team or sponsor this event!

What a day we had!

We had a successful tournament on Saturday, May 3, 2008. It's hard to believe it's over, after so many weeks & months of planning. We estimate that 275 people came out to watch & play in our 1-day tournament, which is definitely more than last year!

We had 14 teams play this year (10 men's & 4 co-ed's), & it was a day filled with some really great softball. There were some glitches because two of the teams didn't show up, but we learned a lot about what to do next time & will be ready for it if it happens again. We want to say a special thank-you to all of the men's teams that were so patient & flexible with us as we configured the new brackets!

In all, we raised approximately $6,300.00 - not bad for our 2nd tournament! We feel like each one will be better, & we can't wait for the next one. We do welcome your suggestions, so please send any suggestions to info@thelukepierfoundation.org!

Below are some great pictures from the day. We hope you enjoy them, & we look forward to seeing you at the next Luke Pier Foundation event! (If you are reading this via an email subscription or blog reader, you may need to visit the blog home page to view the slideshow.)

444Don't forget...you can subscribe to our blog so you don't miss out on any of the exciting news about The Luke Pier Foundation. Simply enter your email address in the box at the right of this post. Once you confirm your email subscription, you will receive notices whenever the blog is updated. It's a great way to stay informed!

Thank you, Volunteers!

We want to send out a special THANK-YOU to all of the volunteers who came to help us at the softball tournament this weekend! We could not have done it without you!

And the Winners Are...

Players started filing in around 8am on Saturday morning. The first games started at 9am, & the last game ended at 8pm. It was definitely a day full of some really great softball for the 2nd Annual Luke Pier Foundation tournament. We will post a slideshow of pictures soon, but we wanted to acknowledge the winning teams first!

The 2nd place winners are:

Total Combustion from Piedmont Natural Gas in Charlotte, NC won 2nd place in the Co-Ed's tournament. It was their first time playing together but you wouldn't have known it!JDC Builders came in 2nd Place in the Men's tournament. They played some really great games & were able to beat out 8 other teams for the 2nd place spot!

The 1st place winners are:

Double Play came in 1st in the Co-Ed's tournament. Here they are with Luke after he presented them with their trophy. They said they're ready to play again in the next tournament, so all you Co-Ed teams out there...watch out!

Broome Sign Company won 1st place in the men's tournament. Some of the players on this team were also on the winning team at our October tournament. They are proving themselves to be the team to beat! Their attitudes were apparent when they prayed for Luke, & then turned around & gave Luke the 1st place trophy because of the hard work he is doing to make The Luke Pier Foundation a success.

We want to say a special thank-you to all the teams who came to play on Saturday! Stay tuned for the slideshow...

Brackets are Here!

We have the brackets for the Men's & Co-ed's game available now! We are so excited because we officially have 12 men's teams & 4 co-ed's teams. To put this into perspective, we had 11 teams total last year!

• Click here for the Men's Bracket
• Click here for the Co-Ed's Bracket

Here is some basic info about the tournament:

• First Men's game starts at 9am
• First Co-Ed's game starts at 10:30am
• $5 minimum donation at the gate (Players, Under 18 & Volunteers free)
• Bojangles & Owen's Bagel & Deli are catering (all proceeds will benefit TLPF!), so please bring cash to purchase any food & drinks throughout the day
• Tournament is at Renaissance Park Athletic Complex at 1200 W Tyvola Road, Charlotte NC

Thanks again to all of you for helping us get closer to our fundraising goal of $50,000 in 2008! We'll see you Saturday!

Coming Soon!

We are only days away from our softball tournament, & we wanted to let all of you softball players know that the brackets will be announced SOON! (as early as today)

Please check back here or on our website often to see if the brackets have been posted. We will also contact all of our teams via email.

We are so excited about the tournament this year - it's already bigger & better than our first one - & that is thanks to all of our supporters' hard work!

THANK YOU!

It's Not Too Late!

We are still accepting teams for the May 3, 2008 softball tournament!

Please send us an email to sign up today! Registrations will be accepted thru April 29, 2008.

Don't miss out on this great event! We are still in need of both men's & co-ed's teams. You can check out our website for more details.

We hope to see you there!

Hitting the airwaves!

We are so excited to announce that WBT, our Official Media Sponsor of the May 3rd softball tournament fundraiser, is now airing 30 second promos about the tournament on their radio station! They are helping us reach so many people with the information about our fundraiser!

We also have some other exciting radio news! A local Charlotte radio DJ, Allen, from Kiss 95.1 is conducting an interview with Luke & the Foundation today! The interview will air on April 20th & 27th from 6am-7am. Kiss 95.1 will air it on one of those dates, & 104.7 will air it on the other Sunday.

It's early for many of you in the Charlotte area, but maybe while you're sipping your coffee you'll remember to tune your radio to 95.1 or 104.7 & listen in!

The interview itself will be approximately 30 minutes long & will give us a chance to discuss the tournament, Luke & the Foundation in length. You don't want to miss it! Allen interviewed us last year & really helped us educate people on why we do what we do! Thanks again, Allen!

Have you signed up yet?

It's time for our 2nd softball tournament, & we are so excited about the prospect of this year being bigger & better than last year! But we cannot do it without your help!

We have received word about a few teams that are being formed, but we need more than a few! If you haven't signed your team up already, please send us an email to sign up! The tournament is such a fun way to raise awareness about The Luke Pier Foundation!

We are also looking for sponsors. Sponsorships will be our best chance of reaching our goal to raise $50,000.00 in 2008! We are offering sponsorships at the $1000 & $500 levels. Please send us an email if your business would like to sponsor the tournament or if you know of any companies that would be good sponsorship candidates!

Thanks again for your support, & let us know if you need more info about signing up a team, sponsoring the tournament or anything else!