Brown to be seeking donations for C.A.S.T.

C.A.S.T. For Kids spokesperson Riley Brown, from El Dorado, and event organizer Tom Spencer will be visiting El Dorado businesses next week asking for sponsorships of this year's event.

Brown, a sixth grader at El Dorado Middle School, was selected as the C.A.S.T. spokesperson last year and has made a number of appearances at events all around the area.

Next week, he will be visiting about 60 businesses, telling them about C.A.S.T. and asking them to get involved.

Brown said he is looking forward to going out to the businesses and letting people know about C.A.S.T.

Their goal is to get people more involved this year and make it more of a hometown event.

"I want to get as many people as I can involved and have people bring out boats," he said, adding he also wants to help raise the money needed to put the event on.

This year's event will be held June 12 at Shady Creek Marina at El Dorado Lake.

The donations are an important part of the event, which is a partnership between C.A.S.T., the Kansas
Highway Patrol troopers and the Department of Wildlife and Parks.

"The real thing is we want to make it as special as we can," Spencer said. "We want to make it an awesome day for the children who attend the event and we want to get them exposed to different activities than being indoors."

The donations help provide each participant with a t-shirt, hat, tackle box filled with items, Zebco rods and reels, plaque and certificate of participation. They hope to have enough donations to cover 50 children.

"By the time they leave, their tackle box is full of tackle and they have everything they need to come back and fish again," Spencer said.

That is his goal, to expose parents and kids to something they can do together as a family.

Brown, who  was born with spina bifida, a neuro tube defect which left him paralyzed, met Spencer two years ago at his first C.A.S.T. event and their friendship has grown from there.

"I like going out and fishing and helping out all of the kids," Brown said.

Spencer also had the opportunity to watch Brown grow over the last couple of years.

"He's taking a whole lot more active role," Spencer said of this year's event.

The event allows disabled and special needs children the opportunity to go fishing with an angler. Boats are provided to take the kids out on the lake to fish. C.A.S.T. is steered toward youth ages 7 to 12 with little or no fishing experience, and parents are encouraged to attend the event with their children.

The children are matched with experienced anglers from several BASS Federation clubs or other fishing organizations who teach them the basics of fishing, safety and fishing ethics.

While they are asking for any donations, a donation of $250 will get a company's logo on the C.A.S.T. t-shirt.

C.A.S.T. is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.

For more information contact Spencer at tom@castforkids.org or 258-6207.

"I like to promote what's good about Kansas and Kansas has some awesome resources, and there in Butler County you have El Dorado Lake," Spencer said.

This will just be the first of several events coming up for Brown. He will be speaking at Cowtown, where they will be auctioning off a guided fishing trip with himself and Spencer. Then he will be going to Ark City June 4 and 5 for an event and he will go to the Sedgwick County Zoo on June 20, where they will have a booth set up.