Avery's Hope

A few weeks back, a friend of the Cup approached me asking if I would be interested in helping promote a raffle for charity. Of course I was a bit hesitant because, well, I can't just promote every little raffle out there on the Cup, but when I saw both the charity being promoted and the prize being raffled, I was more than happy to oblige.

Avery's Hope, a research fund which donates money to the Glycogen Storage Disease Program at the University of Florida, will be raffling off a football signed at SEC Media Days by all of the conference's fourteen head coaches as well as Commissioner Mike Slive. For a five dollar ticket, one can be entered to win the ball during a drawing to be held on the date of the SEC Championship Game. All proceeds will be sent to the aforementioned research program, which conducts research which has literally saved lives from the once fatal disease.

So it's an SEC-football related fundraiser which benefits a life-saving research program held at an SEC university. That's not too bad, y'all. From the folks at Avery's Hope:

For the second year in a row, the SEC has donated an autographed football to us to help raise money for Glycogen Storage Disease research. Last year we raised $5200 to be used at the glycogenstoragedisease.com program at the University of Florida.

...

We would like to expand our reach to all of the SEC fan bases via digital/social media in the hopes of doubling or tripling our contribution to research this year. With the help of sports blogs like RCR and SBNation we can reach our goal of finding a cure.

It's a pretty cool prize for a very worthy cause. Even if you're not one for these types of contests or prizes, surely you know someone who is. Please pass the word along and see if we can make a bit of a difference.

For more, please visit AverysHope.org and Facebook.com/AverysHope.org.