leveling the playing field

The Fayetteville Woodpeckers & Segra Stadium

Interview with Kristen Nett, Community and Media Relations Manager & Rachel Smith, Senior Manager of Events and Guest Services

Photography by @zairistejion

The Fayetteville Woodpeckers have been a great addition to the city! Giving FAYNC another reason to brag on the city! From their victorious wins, to their events! One thing that stuck out to us was the way that The Woodpeckers themed each game with impactful themes. These themed nights and events make memories for families and the Community along with helping local businesses and bringing awareness to causes.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Kristen Nett, Community & Media Relations Manager and Rachel Smith, Senior Manager of Events & Guest Services to talk about how they are involved with these amazing ideas for the team! The first pitch is by far one of the most highlighted parts of the game. Not only are there themed nights but the games always begin with the first pitch. The person who throws the first pitch is carefully selected, this is to honor special people in the community. At select games throughout the season, jersey and apparel are available as part of giveaways as well! These jerseys normally go with the theme and are sponsored by a local business!

So we all know that this is a military town, how have you integrated active military members and veterans into the Woodpeckers festivities? And why is this important to your organization?

Kristen: So we have a 501C3 called the Woodpeckers Foundation. We also have a community leaders fund, so we have five really big organizations here in Fayetteville that invest so much money into us per year. So you can see them out on the board over there. So it’s my job basically to distribute that money back into the community in forms of military initiatives and youth sports initiatives. So since you asked about military initiatives, that’s obviously a huge pillar of our foundation. Some examples of things that we’ve done to support military members are a homeless veteran backpack drive called Backpacks For Patriots, we did that in December. We also support Fort Bragg, YMCA.

We funded their program for children whose parents were deployed. It was like a reading program so they could come once a week and get to meet other kids, you know, who were going through the same things as them. We also did a purple base auction here for Month Of The Military Child. Our foundation already does so much with the military and we just really want to be involved as much as we can especially since we’re so close to Fort Bragg.

Rachel: We work with the MWR (Army Morale, Welfare and Recreation Program) as well just to see how we can get outreach on to Bragg. So if that’s Bunker (The Woodpeckers team mascot) attending an event there, or us having a table to promote, maybe a Woodpeckers game or a special event. But also in exchange, we work with them to get tickets out so that they can give them to military families. Especially on our military themed nights, which we traditionally have three times a year.

Sounds good. So, how have the Woodpeckers engaged our local youth?

Kristen: Kind of going off that second pillar, youth, sports and military, giving back to the community is really important to us specifically, you know, leveling the playing field and giving children equal opportunities regardless of socioeconomic status. So a way we’ve tried to bridge that gap was we created a free baseball team through the Boys and Girls Club called the Junior Woodpeckers, so we donated $10,000 to them, and it covered the cost of little Woodpecker jerseys that said Junior Woodpeckers on the back. It was the fees, all the equipment. They’re cleats, gloves, everything, so families didn’t have to worry about having to pay for their child to be involved in baseball, so that was the first year we did that and that was really awesome. We’re hoping to expand that next year. We also do a program on the field called The Field of Dreams where baseball teams, little league teams, and softball teams can run out on the field with our players. Most recently we donated to the TJ Robinson Life Center. They’re a new Community Center in Hope Mills. Their focus is on helping youth who may be going down a troubled path and turning them back onto the right path. That center actually didn’t have baseball there, so we donated batting cages, and baseball equipment to them, so kids can be involved in baseball for free because of our donation.

Rachel: Another we did is actually an initiative through Minor League Baseball called Play Ball Weekend. This was the first year that they did it and all Minor League facilities were required to host an event over that weekend. SWe invited out local youth camps and those kids were able to participate in a clinic through partnership with FTCC’s (Fayetteville Technical Community College) baseball team and they ran the free baseball clinic.

So what are some local causes organizations that you’ve enjoyed working with so far?

Rachel: I’m a huge animal rescue advocate so we like to do some events with local nonprofits that are pulling dogs from the shelters. We’ve done a few where we invite them out for our dog days. We also hosted an adoption event last fall as well. We had about five different nonprofits come out that brought some of their adoptable animals and we did get some adopted that day, which is awesome, but FAPS (Fayetteville Animal Protection Society), It Take A Village Rescue, and then Operation Healing Whiskers is a local cat rescue. So those are some of the ones that I enjoy working with.

Kristen: I really enjoyed our partnership, like working with Off-Road Outreach. I’ve really enjoyed working with them. We work with a ton of nonprofits and organizations because my goal is all these organizations have the same goal, which is to better Fayetteville.

So why not do things together and one big event together instead of all these little events that may be duplicating resources. So the Backpacks For Patriots event had four nonprofits offered, outreach included. We’re doing a back to school bash free school supplies for low income families here and we have 20 nonprofits joining up. It’ll be here. So everything we do, we like to incorporate other organizations who have the same mission. So we work with a ton.

So how do you choose specific awareness days to highlight during the Woodpeckers game?

Kristen: We try to be inclusive and do things that are different, off the grid, but also sticking in line with things that Minor League Baseball is passionate about, such as cancer awareness.

Rachel: Also as we start planning our promotional calendar we have some of the nights that we’ve already lined up, but that’s when we get together as a team and we voice what we’re passionate about as individuals and then our Ballpark entertainment team will put together the full promotional calendar. We get a lot of feedback from everybody in the office, which is really cool.

Why have the Woodpeckers and Segra Stadium chosen to make awareness days and working with local causes such an important aspect of game days?

Kristen “Yeah, what I always like to say is we’re so much more than a baseball team, we’re multimillion dollar entity that’s here in the community and we need to do more than just win baseball games. That’s where our whole office is just very passionate about giving back to the community and we have that platform. We have money to be able to give back and invest in the community. It’s just something that I’m super passionate about and I know that we’re going to continue to keep growing throughout the next couple of years.

Rachel: Both Kristen and I are not local to Fayetteville, so moving down here and seeing how the Community has taken grasp of this team, we have the ability to get back into the community. I grew up in a team or in a city that had a minor league team. So you know it was kind of the norm. But here we’re brand new and this is what we want to show that we do have the ability to give back into the community and we want to do that.

So how can people in our community become more involved with the Woodpeckers?

Kristen: So we have specific programs here. We have a kids club, we have a nonprofit of the game program where nonprofits can come out and be showcased at a game so any community nonprofit who’s a registered 501C3 can apply for that program.

Rachel: We host the Fayetteville 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb in September. We partnered with the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation and all proceeds go to the national Bond Firefighter Foundation. So that’s just one of the few that we have here that people can come out and support as well.

Kristen: And Rachel’s in charge of non-game events and really spearheading those so we’re always doing things, even when we’re not in season.

Rachel: We’re also trying to push for free events as well. That’s what I’ve been really passionate about since I’ve came here. So we’ve already had a Jackie Robinson showcase where that was free to the public and then also our back to school bash is coming up that’s free to the public. So we want to be inclusive to everyone.