Huntingdon Athletics Continues Tradition Of Local Community Service

MONTGOMERY, Ala.- Over the last two academic school years, Huntingdon Athletics has sparked a tradition of giving back to the local communities within Montgomery and the River Region, acting out the Huntingdon motto of "Go forth and apply wisdom through service."

Huntingdon Men's Basketball, Softball,  Women's Wrestling, Tennis, and Women's Basketball  each have spread the ideals of the institution through their student-athletes, embarking on several community service projects this academic year.

For the second year in a row, Head Men's Basketball Coach Zac Richards led the "Let's Read With Coach Z" program, inspiring students across the city of Montgomery to reach their reading goals. As part of the program, this year the team visited BEAR Elementary, Vaughn Road Elementary, Brewbaker Intermediate, Blount Elementary, Baldwin, and Chisolm Elementary.

"We are honored to be able to serve our community through our reading program," shared Coach Richards. "I am incredibly grateful for every school and administrator that has partnered with us and allowed us to visit. We have a great group of men that understand how important it is to serve others and I am blessed to be their coach."

While Men's Basketball primarily provided service to the local schools, Huntingdon Softball took a more widespread approach to their service. In the Fall 2024 semester alone, the program welcomed students at Garrett Elementary back to school, assisted with a Bingo Night at Capitol Hills Healthcare, volunteered at the Heart of Alabama Food Bank by packing boxes that translated to 13,500 meals, and spent time with children in the After-School program at the Chisholm Boys & Girls Club.

Senior catcher Miranda Treadway found these experiences to be mutually beneficial for all those involved, stating "The monthly service our team does within our communities allows for us to bond over helping one another, but it's also rewarding to give back and help those who truly are in need."

"It is a lot of fun being able to go to different places in our community and really make a difference," shared Head Coach Casey Chrietzberg. " The city of Montgomery is a special place and we are proud to be able to give our time to many of the wonderful organizations here in the city."

Led by Head Coach Lillian Humphries, Huntingdon Women's Wrestling participated in the HandsOn Christmas program this year. The team had the opportunity to "adopt" a family for Christmas and provide them with Christmas presents to open Christmas morning. This year, the team was assigned a single mom of 4 children who was also taking care of her own mother. We split the team into groups and each group got one of the children to buy gifts for, while Coach Lillian and Coach Jonathan got a little something for the mother and grandmother! We passed the gifts off to the ladies in charge and were able to be a part in making someone else's Christmas memorable.

Coach Humphries was thrilled with her team's eagerness to serve, stating "I wasn't sure how many of the ladies would participate in this when I brought it up, but every single person on our team volunteered, they were eager and excited to provide a Christmas for this family. "We all really enjoyed getting a little bit of information about each of the four children and going to get them gifts that we thought they'd each love. I'm thankful our team could all come together to do something wonderful with this organization."

"Being able to give back to a family for Christmas was an amazing experience," shared Freshman Women's Wrestler Ariyana Reid. "The team was all very excited to participate as we were shopping together, and talking about all the things we wanted to get for the family was both fun and rewarding.

In a similar fashion, both Huntingdon's men's and women's tennis teams "adopted" two families for Christmas and supplied them with gifts for the holiday season.  Head Women's Tennis Coach Kathleen Thompson shared that "Our teams were so excited to adopt two local families for Christmas this year. We had so much fun shopping. Everyone pitched in their own money to make sure that these kids had a great Christmas. I'm so proud of our teams."

Continuing their ongoing tradition of six years, Huntingdon women's basketball team volunteered at the 17th annual, "Breakfast for Babies" event hosted by Chappy's Deli. The primary objective of this event is to raise money for the NICU at Baptist Health. Raising $75,000 and selling 5,500 boxes, the goal number of both dollars raised and boxes sold was easily reached. 

Head Coach Paige Huff shared that "This is an amazing opportunity for our team to give back to the community and future community. I am always so pleased and proud of our team during this event. I can not say enough good things about "Breakfast for Babies". The girls look forward to it each year. Their hard work translates to off the court, and they get to expose their character. Much like last year, we were able to meet children that have been in the NICU before, including some of our Huntingdon Family (Charlie and Harrison Stephens), the twins of Jameson and Bria Stephens. I believe it really helped bring things to full circle in light of our fundraiser and show that what we are doing is actually beneficial and changing lives."

Seniors Cassidy Campbell and Charity Shaw shared that "Breakfast for babies has been a great opportunity for our women's basketball program to service our community. We have thoroughly enjoyed being part of something bigger than ourselves, and we hope to be back for many years to come."

As Huntingdon Athletics gets going for the Spring semester, we're thankful not only for the outpouring of our teams, but the willingness of our local communities to allow us to work alongside them to better the River Region as a whole.