Love thy neighbor: Lady Apaches raise $2000 for Geronimo storm victims

GONZALES — Love thy neighbor isn’t just some bible verse one puts in their Twitter bio. Those three words have a little bit more weight in Gonzales County.

And the Lady Apaches basketball team just proved it.

Last Friday as storms rained down in all parts of Texas, a tornado hit close to home, causing havoc in a neighboring county. Although Gonzales didn’t have much adverse effect other than a bit of rain coming down, two basketball players in Geronimo weren’t as lucky.

“Coach [Bernice] Voigt texted me and said ‘did you hear about the basketball girls in Navarro?’” head girls’ basketball coach Valerie Akpan recalled. “I said no and she said their homes were destroyed.”

At that point Akpan wanted to help out their district mates anyway she could, so she went up to her basketball girls and told them if they can put in just a few dollars between all 30 girls, maybe they’ll be able to get them a $100 gift card.

The team took up that challenge and brought it to new heights as they eventually raised $2000 to give to the two families out of Geronimo.

“I was so proud of my girls,” Akpan said, “I was going to do something but they really just promoted it and made it this huge grand gesture. I was really proud of that. That shows the true kind heart that my girls have.”

After talking about raising money, the Lady Apaches went to their respective classrooms that Friday and asked others to donate.

“The other girls in their classes started asking their teachers and they stood up and passed around envelopes and Ziploc baggies and stuff and they asked their classmates, ‘hey this is what we’re doing’ and kids just started opening their wallets.

“We had kids all day come fro every class and say ‘hey we want to donate,’” Akpan continued, “and all the teachers, they were letting them come in their rooms…so the girls really made it so much bigger than I’d ever imagine it would be.”

By the end of the school day, the Lady Apaches raised $700. Then the idea that they can make an announcement at the football game got Akpan into thinking that maybe they can reach $1000.

“Well we made $1000 at the football game alone,” Akpan said, “so then when we had $1700 we’re like dude, let’s just take this until our scrimmages are over and not keep a gate.”

After a weekend of scrimmages at home, the Lady Apaches got to reach their goal of $2000, $1000 for each Navarro basketball player.

“It started with one little ‘let’s do this’ and the girls just carried it over and made it a very big project,” Akpan said.

One incredible story came at school when a student willingly gave up lunch to donate their money for the cause.

“’I will give you my lunch money but you know, I won’t eat lunch, whatever,’” Akpan recounted the student saying. “Another kid in the class said ‘well you can go eat lunch with me today.’ So they just out of nowhere, they just supported each other. It was very…I really enjoyed it because I got to see my kids work like that.”

Though there was obviously some help from the community, the fact that high school kids were so willing to open their wallets to help was great for Akpan.

“They don’t know those two girls [affected by the tornado],” she noted, “they don’t even know their names.”

Yet when a neighbor was in trouble, Gonzales came in to help.