Help school with tuition by shooting free throws

Do you got game? Can you sink free throws with ease? If so, Immanuel Lutheran School in Palatine needs your help to raise money for student tuition scholarships. Each free throw you make earns scholarship money for the Immanuel Lutheran School Educational Foundation through a donation from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans.

Shoot for Scholarships takes place from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 26, at Immanuel Lutheran School, 200 N. Plum Grove Road in downtown Palatine.

Each year, the church foundation provides student scholarships for families needing tuition assistance for children attending Immanuel Lutheran School, said Rev. Warren Schilf, associate pastor at Immanuel.

While Thrivent Financial has long been supportive, this year that support took a different twist, thanks to John Messerschmidt, a financial associate for Thrivent Financial, who with his wife enrolled his three children in the school’s basketball camps last summer.

“We were so impressed by the quality of the instruction and the overall philosophy of developing young men and women, we wanted to find a way to support the school,” he said.

After enrolling his children in the camp again this year, Messerschmidt asked boys’ head basketball coach John Ulrich how Thrivent could help, he immediately thought of scholarships.

When Thrivent agreed to help, “we decided to come up with an event that blends our commitment to providing academic excellence in a Christ-centered setting with our love of basketball,” Schilf said. From there, the idea for the Shoot for Scholarships fundraiser took off.

Participants will be given 10 free throw attempts and successful free throws will be recorded. Thrivent Financial will donate money to the foundation for each free throw. The event is free and open to the public.

For more information on the event, call (847) 359-1936 or go to immanuelpalatine.org. For information on the basketball camps, email coachjohnulrich@yahoo.com or call (847) 259-7504.