KINGMAN – St. John’s United Methodist Church has been hosting a Bulldog Football Dinner outreach program to help support the football players of Kingman High School. Each week, the church puts on a free dinner for the Bulldogs football team, prepared by church volunteers. The dinners are held on Thursdays when the team plays away games, and on Fridays when they play at home. For weeks that the Bulldogs play against Lee Williams, the dinners are held on Friday afternoons.

When asked about why these dinners are important for St. John’s to coordinate, Pastor Andrew commented that, “We believe that we are called to do as John Wesley said: ‘Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.’” He continued, saying that St. John’s is blessed to be able to develop a relationship with the KHS football team and that they look forward to developing relationships through their good deeds in the rest of the greater Kingman area.

But the real focus of these dinners is the players and how they are affected by the dinners. Coach Russell Stryker said that the family setting of the dinners does immeasurable good for his team. “Football really is a team sport, so anything they can do as a family brings them closer together and translates well onto the football field [because] they don’t want to let their brother down.”

And through this collaboration, St. John’s and KHS have set up the team for success by connecting them to a foundation of community support. Coach Stryker reminisced about when he was in school and KHS was the only school in town. He remembered how “the whole town was blue and gold on game day and [the town] really lived for their football team. So, it’s nice to get some of that back now that there’s three schools in Kingman.”

And this foundation seems to be working very well. The Bulldogs played their Homecoming game on Friday and won in a shutout 68-0 against the Kingman Academy.

But an outreach of this size and longevity requires a lot of help. After St. John’s feeds the athletes, the athletes need something to help them keep that momentum up for their games. A great way to help these kids out is to show up to their games.

“We’re a good team this year,” Coach Stryker said. “It’d be nice to see a lot of faces in the stands.”

So, help show support for the athletes at Kingman High and the youth of Kingman and cheer them on at their next game!

Andrea L. Heer