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Baseball Concessions Benefit The Community |
Both the Durham Bulls and the Myrtle Beach Pelicans believe in giving back to the communities of their fans. One program that will start with the opening of both minor league teams’ seasons is the service to the community through concession sales. These types of programs operate throughout the sports world at all levels, collegiate and professional. Both ballclubs participate; they allow volunteers to work in concessions to earn money for their organizations. These programs benefit the local community and control labor costs for food service.
Pelicans Food Services the Community
Volunteers at Coastal Federal Field earned $120,000 through the first two Pelicans’ seasons for local non-profit groups. Ovations Food Services (formerly known as Excel Food Services) operates the Pelicans food concessions and coordinates the volunteer program.
Each working group earns a percentage of a game’s net sales, somewhere between 10-12% depending on how long the group has participated in the program. At the Pelicans home base there is about a 50-50 split of volunteer and hired workers at each concession stand throughout the park.
Ten groups have worked at Coastal Federal Field so far. They have used the money for special trips such as the soccer club going to Europe, church missions, team uniforms, school year books and much more. These groups include the Ocean Strand Soccer Club (OSSOC), Trust My People, Glenn’s Bay Baptist Church, Masonic Lodge, High Steppers, Socastee High School, Waccamaw High School, South Strand Lions Club, Myrtle Beach High School Booster Club and Kingsway Baptist Church.
Durham Bulls Concessions Contribute
The Durham Bulls are long-term participants in the volunteer program in concessions. Last season alone food service operator, Volume Services of America, paid $194,000 to volunteer groups who manned concession stands.
A wide variety of groups worked the concession stands last season. The Durham Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority earned money to help build a new community center with programs working with underprivileged children in SW Durham. Twenty-four Civitan clubs, five of which are in Durham, raised over $25,000. Seventy-five percent of those earnings went to the Children Development Unit at Duke University Medical Center. James E. Shepherd Sertoma had its members work towards buying hearing aids, materials for handicapped ramps and 4-H camp scholarships for hearing impaired students. Other groups who manned the concessions as volunteers for the Bulls last year include the Durham County Foster Parent Association, Durham Jaycees, Support Our Schools–over 30 groups total.
