Gridiron Football Holds First Ever Fundraiser For Non-Profit Organization

Last week, Gridiron Football held its first ever fundraiser for its non-profit (Gridiron Football All-American Events) to help raise money for the upcoming 2024 Gridiron Football All-American Bowl Game. The event was held at Lamar Dixon Expo Center and a great crowd was on hand to hear about Gridiron Football’s mission to help kids since its inception in 2014.

***Click the image to learn more about one of our big supporters of young athletes in Bartage and Anderson!***

It was not only a fundraising event, but a free breakfast and a networking event for businesses to get to mingle with one another. Eighty-three businesses were at the premises and thousands of dollars were raised for a worthy cause, which is to help high school players get to college. According to Andy Bryson, who is the CEO and founder of Gridiron Football, the mission of the inaugural kickoff fundraiser was to raise enough money to help this year’s four bowl game senior MVPs get scholarships to help pay for college.

“It was a very humbling experience to have 83 businesses there. A lot of people supported us. Together, they donated thousands of dollars to the non-profit. It is exciting and something that we definitely can build upon going into the football season and getting closer to the bowl game. The mission of Gridiron Football is to help as many kids as possible through our events, magazine, website. Importantly, there is 98% success rate of getting college offers. We definitely want to help as many kids as possible and we want to try and get the top four MVPS from the bowl game scholarships for college. That is the point of these fundraisers is to try and get money where we can donate money to the kids at the bowl game.”
Gridiron Football CEO Andy Bryson

Everyone that was in attendance got to witness a presentation from Andy Bryson about how Gridiron Football was able to impact young men’s lives the last 10 years and got to hear testimonials from many people that were personally impacted by Gridiron Football during that time frame including Donald Berniard Sr., who has a son named Donald Berniard Jr. that was heavily promoted through Gridiron Football before he ended up signing with the Naval Academy and having an All-American career. Also, Eric Holden, who is one of the coaches for the Gridiron Football All-American Bowl Game, talked about how he has seen the bowl game impact thousands of kids.

Prizes were also involved as two businesses ended up winning a couple of door prizes and one lucky person won a bid for a football signed by none other than LSU head coach Brian Kelly.

**Corey Domino receives offer to the play in the 2024 Gridiron Football All-American Bowl Game**

Speaking of coaches, two high school coaches came to support the fundraiser as North Iberville head coach Joshua Gast and Episcopal head coach Travis Bourgeois were there in attendance. Gast even brought some of his players to help with serving breakfast including one player in Corey Domino who was surprised at the fundraiser with an official invite to the Gridiron Football All-American Bowl Game.

Although the primary goal was to fundraise money for the bowl game, it also served to be a celebration of the success that Gridiron Football has achieved since its inception.

“It was a very humbling, but awesome experience for our very first fundraiser. The goal is to get people excited about what we do, spread the word to people that don’t understand what we do fully. I can sit and talk all day about the things we do and never fully tell everybody everything just because we do so much. It’s not just the magazine, the shows, the website. It is not just social media, the 7v7, the camp. There’s a lot involved with what we do here. We are not a recruiting service. Our new non-profit is dedicated to working along side Gridiron Football the media company to provide exposure for prospects, high schools, and colleges. The new non-profit gives us the flexibility to run more events, provide scholarships, and help students reach their full potential.”
Gridiron Football CEO Andy Bryson

Held at the official host of Gridiron Football All-American Events at Lamar Dixon Expo Center, Bryson is super excited about the many future events that will be held at Ascension Parish including the events surrounding the bowl game.

Gridiron Football is also grateful to be surrounded with great support including table captains that gathered businesses together, people that donated, and volunteers that helped with putting on such a successful event.

“Lamar Dixon has been awesome. Their facilities are second to none. They were just completely overjoyed in helping us in putting this fundraiser on. However, this is a team event. You are only as good as the people you surround yourself with. I am very selective on who I put around me. That is one of the things that I learned from the military. You, Jace are a big help to this whole thing. Richard Hebert, Mrs. Tricia Bernard, Alex Velasquez, Marcus Randall, Cami Miller, Jayme Poirrier, etc. Big thanks to those people. They all had a hand in making this event great. I know I am forgetting a few, but I definitely want to give a big shoutout to those people for the work they did in helping this become a successful event.”

“At least 30 people that have showed up were also from BNI so that’s a big networking organization. I have been a part of their organization for 10 years so big shoutout to BNI and the power BNI has been able to do by networking.”
Gridiron Football CEO Andy Bryson

The initial success of the fundraiser has planted a seed for future fundraisers to help continue the growth of Gridiron Football’s mission, which is to change lives not only in Louisiana, but nationwide.

“I got a couple of more lined up already. I am talking to mayors and city councilmen all over the state about hosting fundraisers all across the state of Louisiana and possibly bringing it out of state and getting some other donations as well. We no longer cover just Louisiana. That is our home state and that was the original mission in Louisiana, but as we grow over the years, there are people nationwide that want to be a part of what we do here.”
Gridiron Football CEO Andy Bryson

To see the nationwide impact of Gridiron Football, check out some of the clips below!

The people that were gracious in donating to Gridiron Football during the fundraiser are mentioned below! We want to thank each and every one of them for their gracious donation and support of high school athletics! If you were unable to attend or would just like to join us in our mission please click the link below to donate today!

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