Meet these area athletes making a difference

This area offers great capacity for relief efforts. We’re not talking the sixth and seventh innings.

Community service is rampant among schools and athletic programs, and this space likes to highlight those projects.

Most of the time the good deeds are detailed and maybe accompanied by a picture of happy people holding a huge cardboard check or wearing pink swim caps, and that’s that.

That’s why it was so nice to see the notes of thanks from American soldiers, beneficiaries of the Jan. 8 Operation Fast Break food and supply drive by the St. Charles East girls basketball team and school band.

Saints junior point guard Annie Martines’ brother, Alec, was stationed in Iraq, the impetus for a food drive that, with the guidance of Fox Valley Troop Support, sent numerous boxes of goodies to posts both overseas and here in the states. Annie Martines started the supply drive as a freshman.

“It definitely brightened my day knowing that our caring folks back home were looking out for us,” LTC Ken Pell Jr. wrote on March 14 from a medical lab in Kandahar, Afghanistan. “I’ll have to pick up a nice XXL St. Charles East Girls Basketball T-shirt this summer when I’m back and out in your neck of the woods.”

A sergeant out of Fort Stewart, an American Samoan named Pepa Fuata, wrote: “I have 27 soldiers from across the United States under my command. They all send their thank you to you all and wish you luck in your school and on your basketball team.”

Alec Martines himself chimed in: “Could you tell them it really means a lot for everyone here. ... when everyone else comes in with a problem, they see the box that you sent to us, and the look on their face is priceless. They appreciate it so much, that they actually end up giving me a hug (which is weird) and eat or use almost everything that they send.”

Alec and Annie’s father, Bob Martines, is a teacher at Thompson Middle School in St. Charles. He said the entire eighth-grade class donated their Halloween candy to ship overseas. Bob Martines said 100 pounds was collected, and Fox Valley Troop Support will ship it in May.

“Besides fixing a soldier’s sweet tooth, candy is great to use instead of packing peanuts in the boxes we ship,” he said.

Who knew Jolly Ranchers were so practical?

The latest

Working off an idea by Teri Hoscheit, mother of sophomore linebacker Joe Hoscheit, and with the backing of Saints head varsity football coach Mike Fields, last week the Saints undertook a food drive for the Salvation Army. The charity’s program director, Jenny New, is a St. Charles East graduate.

“At first we were kind of skeptical, like are people going to donate food?” wondered Kelly Kelley, mother of junior linebacker John Kelley and a booster who worked with Teri Hoscheit on the project.

“And sure enough, it was a huge success, 2,200 pounds,” Mrs. Kelley said.

Armed with 800 paper grocery bags donated by Blue Goose Market and equipped with neighborhood maps, 40 Saints football players spread out in teams to various east-side neighborhoods. On door knobs the boys hung the bags, to which were stapled requests for donations explaining the Salvation Army’s need.

“It was like a big treasure hunt,” Kelly Kelley said.

The next day, during the adverse weather last Friday, the boys headed back out to collect. She estimated around 500 of the 800 bags were returned, full of food.

What 2,200 pounds of food looks like must be stated in relative terms.

“It was massive,” Kelley said. “It was carloads of filled grocery bags.”

It made one proud to be a Saint, noted her son, the linebacker.

“We got a huge sense of support from the community,” John Kelley said.

Old news but good news

Though rather ripe, congratulations still must be granted to those who earned Illinois Basketball Coaches Association district coach of the year honors.

Capping a triumphant return from cancer that kept her out of the first part of the season, Geneva’s Gina Nolan was one honoree. Others were Wheaton Academy boys coach Paul Ferguson as well as two other boys coaches who led their respective teams to supersectional appearances for the first time in many moons, Aurora Central Catholic’s Nathan Drye and Aurora Christian’s Steve Hanson.

Other familiar names included East Aurora’s Wendell Jeffries and both Benet coaches, boys coach Gene Heidkamp and girls coach Peter Paul.

Coaches will be honored along with the 2011 Class of IBCA Hall of Fame inductees — who include Batavia’s Jim Roberts — on April 30 at Illinois State University in Normal.

Remembering Dustin

“He could cheer up a room just by his smile,” said Geneva graduate Michael Ratay, now a redshirt freshman football player at Grand Valley State in Grand Rapids, Mich.

“It’s amazing,” said Ratay, one of Dustin Villarreal’s classmates, “anytime I go to play a football game I think about him.”

Dustin Villarreal obviously made a huge impact in his short stay on this earth, to read the account presented on the website his parents Dave and Jena and brother Dave II have established along with a memorial scholarship fund in his name.

“Dusty” died on May 5, 2006, of what doctors presumed to be an irregular heartbeat caused by an abnormal descending aortic artery, after he collapsed while running around with friends, just like any active 15-year-old boy might.

“I think the majority of us, we would say a prayer for him before we’d go out (to play),” Ratay said. “It kind of went hand in hand with us playing football.”

Vikings coach Rob Wicinski remembers Villarreal as a tall, lanky boy, a freshman defensive end who was a hard worker with great spirit.

“He was about the team, and he was about Geneva,” Wicinski said.

That also describes the Villarreal Memorial Scholarship Fund, which for the past five years, starting in 2007, has granted two Geneva students each with a $2,000 scholarship.

“That’s one of the larger scholarships we give out here in Geneva,” Wicinski said.

Funding is provided by a variety of projects, but the largest portion comes from an annual concert that this year will be held at 8 p.m. Friday, April 29, at the Arcadia in St. Charles. Hosted by Scott Mackay of 95.9 The River, the concert will feature classic rock by Rick Lindy and the Wild Ones and Elvis Presley tribute artist, Jack Flash. Tickets are a tax-refundable $20 or $25 at the door; for information, the best route is to visit the website, dustinvillarrealmemorialfoundation.org.

“To keep this scholarship moving along, and with this fundraiser over at the Arcadia, that’s pretty awesome,” Wicinski said.

As was the young man’s influence.

“I can’t speak for everyone,” Ratay said, “but I know for me and some other good friends, he’s always in our thoughts.”

doberhelman@dailyherald.com