ANNOUNCEMENT: Blazersedge Night at the Garden 2012! Send Kids to See a Trail Blazers Game!

I am happy to announce that our 2012 Blazersedge Night at the Garden is set and ready to go! For those who haven't been with us long, this is an annual event. It started with a standard blog get-together in which a couple of people who had purchased tickets found themselves unable to attend. We gave those tickets away to area children and youth who otherwise wouldn't be able to attend a game. Not only that, but we provided almost 50 more donated tickets that first year when our requests for help outnumbered the supply.

Since then Blazersedge Night has grown into a major event. Last year we sent 500 kids to the only Blazers game they'd be able to see...for many of them the only game they'd ever seen in person. This year we're looking to top that!

Our special night will be March 22nd and the opponent will be the same Memphis Grizzlies that we'll see tonight. By then this could be a game with playoff implications. It should be a great evening for the kids.

The good news is that the tickets run cheaper this year: $14 per seat until we sell out the purple sections. If we need more we can get red sections for even cheaper. Never has it been so easy for you to provide a child with this amazing experience!

The scary news is that because of increasing demand we're trying to get 600 tickets this year instead of 500. Also instead of having a whole season to provide those tickets we have about a month and a half.

This is where you come in! We need your help. This has always been a grass-roots event...something our community bands together to do for these kids. We don't have corporate sponsors coming in with multi-thousand-dollar gifts. We sell these tickets two, five, ten at a time. We make this happen together or it doesn't happen at all.

We don't charge for the content we put out on this site. We never have and never will. If you appreciate this place, if you appreciate helping out kids, if you appreciate being able to grow the next generation of Blazers fans we're asking you to buy a ticket or two at least. Every bit, every ticket, makes a huge difference.

Here's how it works...

If you want to buy tickets in regular amounts (like 1 or 5 or 20) you can simply go to:

http://tickets.trailblazers.com/deals

Then type in the password: Blazersedge

The Blazers have set up this site so you can order directly. Tickets are $14 each plus there's a $5 service charge for the entire order no matter how many tickets you buy. They accept all the usual online payment methods. Note that this only works for DONATED tickets. You cannot buy tickets for yourself this way.

If you want to give a non-standard amount (like $10 or $100) and/or want to avoid the service charge you may make a donation via PayPal to the account blazersedge22@yahoo.com We'll compile the funds donated via PayPal into one lump sum and purchase tickets accordingly.

If you're having difficulty with one of the above methods or if you wish to purchase tickets for yourself to attend this event in our sections you can always call Lisa Swan at 503-963-3966. She will help you out. Be very nice to her, as she is amazing. In another life I'm going to ask her to my senior prom. Although, come to think of it, she'd probably just try to get me to upgrade the tickets. But be nice to her anyway because she's helped us with this event for years.

Over the next few weeks I'll share with you some of the stories and thank-you's we've had from past Blazersedge Night participants. For now, suffice it to say that seeing kids who never thought they'd see a Blazers game in person walk into the Rose Garden with wide eyes and trembling hands is an experience you'll never forget. Teachers and principals and counselors tell us again and again how amazing it is to see kids who have seen too much and gotten too little turn into carefree children, if just for a night. This experience makes a difference in classrooms, in homes and families, in ways you'd never anticipate. And you wouldn't believe the noise that comes from hundreds of children and youth cheering their hearts out for their team to win on their night.

Help us make someone's Blazer dreams come true. I'm not sure anything we do is better than this.

--Dave (blazersub@gmail.com)

P.S. If you're a teacher, principal, counselor, clergy member, or anyone who works with disadvantaged students who otherwise wouldn't get to see a Blazers game in person, contact me at the e-mail address just above. We provide tickets for kids and chaperons. Get your request in early if you can.