Bright Side Night: Gaining Momentum...but so far to go

While you’re stressing over who’s going to be our next president, make yourself feel a little bit better by changing the life of a kid who needs a smile-making memory.

For the second year in a row, your friendly neighborhood Bright Side of the Sun is sending hundreds of underprivileged kids and their chaperones to a Suns game on December 11, 2016 against the New Orleans Pelicans.

Last year, we sent 700 kids to the November 11 game against Portland, and another 125 to a spring game.

This year, we want to beat that number and maybe even double it!

Status Update

After two weeks of donations, we are at 432 kids getting tickets thanks to you guys and gals!

Great progress, but a long, long way to go to 1,000.

Please spread the word, share this link with your friends. Every little bit helps. Even one ticket for $16 changes one life.

Those great folks over at BlazersEdge.com got up to 2,000 tickets last year with a similar program. Some readers donated more than once. Even a ticket here, a ticket there, adds up to changing a lot of lives!

Who gets the tickets

The Suns have identified a number of great kids organizations for our donations and we’re always open to more suggestions.

Got any connections or contacts with organizations dedicated to improving the lives of our challenged youth?

Let us know! We can’t donate if we don’t know about them.

Just last week, we added the Tucson Boys and Girls Club at the request of a reader. If you have good schools or organizations to suggest, send them to me at davek01@hotmail.com or directly to our Suns rep Lauren Baum at lbaum@suns.com.

What it means to the kids

The kids we target don’t get many opportunities in life. For them, going to a Suns game is the best thing that will happen all year. And best of all, they do it together. The more tickets we donate, the more kids we bring who have the same kind of struggles in life.

They not only get the memory of watching a live NBA game, a smile-making memory that will stay with them for their entire lives, they get to take home goodie bags and t-shirts too!

They get to say they joined the Devin Booker bandwagon before he became an All-Star. Or T.J. Warren the year he won the MIP. They can say they watched Anthony Davis live. And Marquese Chriss before he became a household name.

We are even working on a visit from the Gorilla during the game and, thanks to Jim Coughenour, one lucky kid will win an official Suns jersey!

Do your part to give this experience to even just one more kid.

The “Everyone Wins” package!

One of our readers coined that phrase and I love it so much I’m going to use from now on.

Donate 10 tickets and get all this for yourself:

• Two of your own lower-bowl tickets to the game - really good seats!
• Invitation to a pre-game Q and A with Suns GM Ryan McDonough himself
• Invitation to the High-Five Tunnel at halftime, where you can get down to the floor level and give the players high fives as they take the court

All that in addition to changing the lives of 10 more kids thanks to your generous donation.

Act fast! While the lower bowl tickets are unlimited, those two special invitations have limited space so we’re going to have to cap attendance soon.

And if you don't live in the Phoenix area, you can give the tickets to a friend, or even re-donate them to add to the list of deserving kids.

The “Kids Win” package

But it’s not all about what’s in it for you, right?

Every single ticket, every $16 donation, makes a difference. Don’t hesitate. Don’t tell yourself we don’t need your small donation.

Many of you just want to give to the cause and don’t need anything back for yourself, and that’s what the ticket drive is all about.

Donate one ticket. Or two. Or five.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get something back in addition to a warmer heart.

A few of our smaller donators will win some lower-bowl tickets too, courtesy of the Suns and your managing editor. Just make the online donation to the kids, and as game day approaches I’ll get with Lauren Baum and we’ll pull together the resources to send some of you to the game too (or another game, if that’s more convenient to you!) with great lower-bowl tickets.

Donate Now

Don’t procrastinate. Just get it done. The game is fast approaching.

• Click this link to get started:https://oss.ticketmaster.com/aps/suns/EN/link/promotion/home/bc641dcfe985d1bba9ec60345d92777e460a5407
• Click ‘Find Tickets’ and use the promo code 'Bright' when prompted
• Select number of tickets, then select 'Bright Side of the Sun $16', then click the button ‘Find Seats’
• Then click the button ‘Add to Cart’ to sign in as a Sixth Man Member, and then select ‘Donation’ under Select Delivery
• follow all the prompts from there to make the payment!
• You will get a confirmation email directly from the Suns about the ticket donation

For those of you who donate 10+ tickets, Lauren Baum will be in direction communication with you about 1-2 weeks later. Your tickets will also be at ‘Will Call’ on game night.

For those who donate less than 10 tickets, you still might win something for yourself! If that happens, we’ll reach out to you in early December.

Don’t hesitate.

Git ‘er done!