UTSA Athletics and the Kahlig Auto Group are teaming up again this baseball season with a quirky way to donate money to San Antonio’s Haven for Hope.
This season, every strikeout pitched by boys and girls baseball and softball teams from the University of Texas at San Antonio will result in a donation to the homeless services nonprofit. UTSA and North Park Subaru, which is part of the Kahlig Auto Group, ran a similar campaign during the most recent basketball season.
Billy Vaughn, vice president of the Kahlig Auto Group, said the campaign was a particular passion of his and that Subaru supports the effort. Subaru has committed to numerous campaigns to give back to the community through partnerships, grants, and direct donations.
“When you have a really successful automobile business or any successful business in a community, part of your success should be giving back and participating in the growth of the community,” Vaughn said in a statement published by UTSA. “I don’t take that lightly. I want everybody to know that we recognize the good work that UTSA is doing. From the athletic director to the professors to the support people, they’ve just got so many good things going on.”
“Several years ago, Kahlig Auto Group started doing a coat drive at our Christmas party,” Vaughn said. “That led us to Haven for Hope. Outside their front gates, we would meet with all their people and we would hand out coats. We started going over there and we had two pickup trucks full of coats. I was there doing it with them and it touched my heart. I had seen where Haven for Hope helped people find jobs and that the people in their facilities were truly in need and were on the right track to get their lives back together. That’s how it all got started.”
Stephen Markham, general manager of North Park Subaru, said that the previous campaign helped bring excitement to every basketball game. The auto dealership donated money for every free throw made by UTSA’s boys and girls basketball teams during the season.
“It was great to see the involvement with the community and our partner, Haven for Hope,” Markham said. “There is a great satisfaction in knowing that the money is going to be used wisely. They’ve got a great leadership team at Haven for Hope, and there’s a lot of pride in being able to help someone else in the community.”
UTSA Athletics and North Park Subaru said the current campaign is just the start of what they hope will be a long relationship to aid the work being done by Haven for Hope.
“We look forward to many more opportunities with UTSA and Haven for Hope,” Markham said. “It’s great to be part of the UTSA community, and we’re really enjoying it.”
Haven for Hope is a “one-stop-shop” homeless services provider that offers substance abuse counseling, job training, and skills development on the same campus where it maintains transitional housing for its clients. Its “one-stop-shop” model has been credited with reducing unsheltered homelessness in San Antonio’s downtown area by 77%.
The City of Dallas has yet to try the “one-stop-shop” model despite it polling favorably among Dallas residents. Some local stakeholders want to bring the model to Dallas, but it is unclear whether City officials will embrace the approach.
Meanwhile, some 75% of Dallas residents believe homelessness, vagrancy, and panhandling continue to be “major” problems throughout the city.
