Ultimate goal for Stowells and their foundation is a Kent facility to house sports and music<\/b><\/p>\n
They dreamed big.<\/p>\n
But Chuck and Elena Stowell never imagined things would snowball quite like they have.<\/p>\n
Or in such magical fashion.<\/p>\n
The Kent couple lost their only daughter, Carly, on April 12, 2007 of an acute cardiac arrhythmia. Just days away from her 15th birthday, Carly collapsed in a North Carolina hotel room while at a tournament with her select AAU basketball team, the Emerald City Legends.<\/p>\n
In the wake of their greatest loss, Chuck and Elena delivered one of their greatest gains last August, forming the Carly Stowell Foundation to help memorialize their daughter and create affordable athletic and music avenues for local youth.<\/p>\n
Though it has been in existence for less than a year, the foundation already has six basketball teams and one volleyball team \u2014 all under the moniker of \u201cJammin\u201d \u2014 playing under its umbrella. Two youth lacrosse teams will be added in the next month, as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming sometimes,\u201d Elena acknowledged. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things, when you sit back and reflect about how fast it all has happened, it\u2019s like, \u2018Wow. I can\u2019t believe it.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just something magical about it. It\u2019s becoming bigger faster than I anticipated. It all just snowballed.\u201d<\/p>\n
To celebrate the fast-growing, non-profit organization\u2019s success, The Carly Stowell Foundation will host its inaugural \u201cFields of Dreams\u201d fund raiser at 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 26 at Grimstad Farms in Kent.<\/p>\n
The fund raiser will be both an opportunity to raise money for the organization and a way of remembering Carly, who was both an accomplished athlete and musician as a freshman at Kentlake High School.<\/p>\n
The event will feature dinner, dancing, with music by Chuck Stowell\u2019s band \u201cSecond Wind,\u201d a slideshow tribute to Carly Stowell, along with silent and live auctions.<\/p>\n
The night will be as much about celebrating their only daughter as it will about getting the word about the foundation out to the public, Chuck said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAwareness is a big part of it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t feel it\u2019s going to be a giant profit for us. We\u2019ve been running on a shoestring budget at a little bit of a loss of our own money.\u201d<\/p>\n
The foundation is aiming to get enough funding either to build or lease a building of its own in the Kent Valley. Such a facility would include enough space for several basketball teams to compete simultaneously and be spacious enough to incorporate the musical aspect of the foundation \u2013 all at an affordable cost for athletes and musicians alike.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ultimate goal is to get enough community support to actually get a local facility \u2013 one that would have four basketball courts, and a few would have volleyball standards,\u201d Elena said. \u201cOffice space … and enough space where we could section off a room to where we could have music practice rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
With its own facility, the programs offered by the foundation no longer would have to vie for valuable court time with various high school and recreation teams in the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They dreamed big.
\nBut Chuck and Elena Stowell never imagined things would snowball quite like they have.
\nOr in such magical fashion.
\nThe Kent couple lost their only daughter, Carly, on April 12, 2007 of an acute cardiac arrhythmia. Just days away from her 15th birthday, Carly collapsed in a North Carolina hotel room while at a tournament with her select AAU basketball team, the Emerald City Legends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-20892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20892"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20892"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=20892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}