(Seguin) — You’re invited to not only bet but guarantee another successful round of fundraising for the annual Ann, Bethany & Tristan Foundation. The non-profit organization is finalizing plans for its annual Casino Night and Dinner. The fundraising effort gets underway at 5:30 p.m. Saturday in the Columbus Club of Seguin Hall.
Blake Bertling, one of the coordinators for the event, says all proceeds raised will go directly into area youth programs — programs that played a big part in the lives of three very special people.
“Almost three years ago, we had a car wreck that ended in a bad tragedy with me losing my mother and my daughter and then my oldest son’s best friend, Tristan, passed away in the car accident too so it’s kind of turning a tragedy into something good. So, what we did is Mark Cerda had a thing going called Wade Busby Memorial to help youth in the area. My mom was an active member in the 4H and Tristan and Bethany were both in 4H also so we thought well what better way to help the community and kind of carry on their name and turn something bad into something good so we had talked to him about it and he thought it was a good idea so we put this thing together and last year was the first annual fundraiser we had,” said Bertling.
Bertling says the support shown for the fundraiser has been incredible and expects the foundation to help even more kids over the next year.
“It was a pretty good success and so we had a lot of donations for the silent auction and the live auction and we raised funds (that we) took (to) this year’s youth show, we were able to become platinum buyers with spending right around $20,000 at the youth show purchasing animals for the Guadalupe County Youth Show for local area kids who are in 4H or FFA and then we also wanted to give scholarships. So, we did 10 $1,000 scholarships and we’ve gotten 26 applicants that we are going to award them, I think, the night of this fundraiser,” said Bertling.
This year’s event will include several casino gaming tables, a catered pork steak dinner from Next Door Catering, live and silent auctions plus DJ music by Texas Heat. Tickets to the fundraiser are $50 each and includes the dinner and casino play money.
Donations for the auctions are still being accepted by calling Bertling at 830-560-6292. Tickets for the event can be purchased by either calling Bertling or by stopping by Seguin Radio KWED at 609 E. Court St. KWED will be open Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.