GO BOWLING, BVL PROVIDE TRIPS TO PATRIOT POINT

Go Bowling recently partnered with the Military Bowl Foundation and Bowlers to Veterans Link to send six veterans on an all-expenses-paid weekend retreat at Patriot Point in Maryland, a 294-acre waterfront facility that provides a safe, secure and tranquil outdoor recreational and therapeutic retreat for wounded, ill and injured active-duty service members, veterans, their families and caregivers who face daily struggles related to their time spent defending America.

Through its partnership with Go Bowling and the Go Bowling Military Bowl, the BVL donated $100,000 to Patriot Point. This funding will sponsor deserving veterans to attend retreats there. The vets selected for this retreat were nominated by the BVL community through a national social-media campaign deployed by Go Bowling to the broader bowling social-media communities of the BPAA, USBC and BVL. Patriot Point staff used selection criteria that included the nominee’s veteran status, connection to the bowling community, personal challenges faced during military service and more to make the selections.

The six veterans selected were: Jeff Metheny, Army, Rockford, Illinois (joined by his wife, Kimberly); Brian White, Marine Corps, Baytown, Texas; Mark Edwards, Navy, Fairfax, Virginia (joined by his fiancée); Emily Hart, Army, Arlington, Virginia (joined by her father, Bryan Ferree); Jason Washburn, Army, Randleman, North Carolina (joined by his father, Jerry Washburn, a Navy veteran); and Matthew Wilson, Army, Overton, Texas.

During their stay, the veterans talked about their relationship to the sport of bowling and why it’s important to them. Metheny, who served in the Army from 1985-1992 and then in the National Guard from 2005-2013, during which time he was deployed to Afghanistan, related a story about how bowling helped him and his unit cope during that deployment.

“When I was in Afghanistan, [proprietor] John Sommer from my hometown in Rockford sent my company a portable bowling lane,” Metheny recalled. “In the horrors of war, where we were facing IEDs and other attacks, that little plastic bowling lane was a piece of home to hold on to, and it really helped us get through and really helped me get through.”

Sommer nominated Metheny for his trip to Patriot Point.