David Busta Basketball Tournament & Silent Auction for Stem Cell Research

Planning for the David Busta Basketball Tournament and Silent Auction has been heating up lately in anticipation of the 4th annual event with a goal of raising money for stem cell research. Set for November 25th in my brother Arik's and my hometown of Chetek, Wisconsin, Aurora has been a sponsor and supporter since the start and we're excited to be participating again this year.

My good friend and high school teammate, David Busta, became quadriplegic after a fall in the summer of 2002, which spurred us to come together with others in Chetek to produce an ongoing annual event for spinal cord injury research. All of the money they raise goes to UW-Madison's Waisman Center and we're expecting to exceed an exciting milestone of $100,000 raised cumulatively following the event in a couple of weeks.

The picture above is of Judy Clark, Eau Claire's (WI) local TV-13 news anchor, myself and David Busta taken at a Nov. 4th interview Judy did with us to help spread the word. While I'm not necessarily excited to play three games of basketball in one day myself on the 25th, I'm thrilled to continue building on the successes we've had in the previous three years, and to try to beat last year's $34,500 total.

This is a cause that's not only important to people like David with spinal cord injuries, but this field of research can benefit so many others with illnesses like ALS, Alzheimers, Parkinsons and similar degenerative diseases, that our group feels we're doing an important thing here, even if the magnitude of our annual totals pale in comparison to the Waisman Center's annual budget - every little bit helps. You have to ask what you would do if it was one of your family or friends stricken with an illness like one of these. The research the Waisman Center is doing is so promising that, we really believe, someday we'll help make the difference in finding real cures.

Of course, we are accepting bids on the variety of auction items we've received from various sponsors, as well as, monetary or auction-item donations up until the 24th of this month. I'm volunteering again (so is Arik) at the event and excited to watch some great basketball games - hopefully the team I field doesn't get beat by 49 again in the first game like they did last year ... all for fun though ;-).

Aurora's major sponsorship for the event this year has been a revamped website - check it out at www.BustaBenefit.org, register for an account and make some bids, or drop me a note at Derek.Johnson@AuroraWDC.com - I'd love to hear from you!

Cheers,

- Derek