By Sue Turbow, Pres. NNBB

Congratulations Club ... Two weeks ago you raised over $640.00 at the silent auction...

Let's first thank member Colleen Limon for acquiring the donations that she did for the auction and her RGJ contact for getting information on the auction into the newspaper.

Let's discuss how this money might be spent. If we send $250.00 to the Cleveland Browns Foundation, the money will go back into the Cleveland Community. We will receive from the foundation: BB Goody Bag with 5 pens, 5 lapel pins, and 3 bottle koozies: plus 5 ticket holders and lanyards, 2 stress footballs, 2 Browns Backers pennants: plus a Browns Drawstring bag and a leather pad-folio: plus a Cleveland Browns merchandise item: and an autographed item from a Browns alumni. We can use all of the above-mentioned items for a raffle and raise even more money for the club.

We also stated that we were raising funds for Hurricane Katrina relief, but who to send the money to? I looked up the New Orleans Saints website and they have a Hurricane Katrina relief fund. Think about how excited the Saints might feel to know that the Northern Nevada Browns Backers were supporting citizens from their community by receiving a check for $390.00 from our club. What do you think?

Here's the real kicker for us though...Because of Colleen's efforts to get auction items and info into the RGJ, a columnist, David Jacobs, called me last week (he got the from our website that Matt Comprix has been maintaining) and there will be free publicity for our club in this coming Saturday's paper. To make a long story short he wanted to know why we were raising funds and where they were going. He was impressed that we are not just a bunch of Browns fans who get together every Sunday to cheer on our team and that we make an effort to put money back into the Cleveland Community, help with Hurricane Relief and raise funds and food for our own community here in Reno/Sparks. What an opportunity!! He's also interested in the possibility of advertising our upcoming fundraiser for the Northern Nevada Food Bank that we have been doing for the past several years.

David is from Toledo, Ohio (as is Matt) but he's a Lions fan. David is going to try to come watch the Lions-Browns Game next week in order to meet us. This is great news. To top it all off David's parents and a cousin of mine, who currently lives in Toledo, are good friends, so this is the round about way that David ended up calling me...Small world!

This is all exciting news for our Club!! Finally getting on the "map." Go Browns!!!