In my head, I’ve rewritten the script of what I wanted to put in this BackBlast to recap the day 100 times. It’s hard to sum it all up. The planning starts months in advance. This is an evolution of what was more a family and friends event last year with a small F3 Stable contingent joining. The goal for this year was: 1) invite all of F3 Louisville; 2) find F3 cooks so I don’t have to do this all by myself; 3) raise money for a charity and also help make the event more affordable for the cooks; and finally 4) create a Fellowship event that speaks to what F3 Louisville is all about.
I think we overachieved and outperformed on every single goal:
1. Attendance. We had 110 HC’s (between PAX, M’s, 2.0’s). I don’t know our total turnout but it had to be close to that. It never felt too crowded and my concerns about pulling this off at the house were no big deal. Thanks to some nice weather, kids were gassed taking 100 trips a piece down the water slide. That freed up the adults for some quality time hanging out all day!
2. Cooks. You guys showed up for me here in a big way! 14 HIM answered my call for support and brought out all of their BBQ party tricks. This was one of the most pleasant surprises. I was expecting guys to be “good” at BBQ. What I got was “great, high effort, high quality” BBQ. So much great BBQ that I found myself unable to try everything due to capacity issues. We had enough food to try 4 unique items every single hour for all 6 hours of scheduled party time!
Shoutout to the team: Flexseal, HBK, Boy RD, Furdays, Edward Scissorhands, Brisket, Pumpkin Spice, Viking, Mr Krabs, Sump Pump, Twister, Wolverine, NattyLite, and YHC. I owe you guys big time.
3. Charitable contribution. We decided as a group to support what Old Bay has going on over at Hope Scarves and the funding of research for metastatic breast cancer. Primarily through an entry fee that partially helped with food cost with overages going to charity, we are able to raise a nice chunk of change and that got donated today. We used an overage from last year’s Prom to pay for a giant water slide rental (shoutout: Thank you Worm!). And then Viking’s paid drafts for charity rounded off the fundraising efforts. In total, after expenses, we were able to donate $1,022 to Hope Scarves!
4. Fellowship. What a community we have at F3 Louisville. Furdays said it best this morning in his Patriot COT. What happened this past Saturday, creating this community where we all support each other, feel a part of something, is what it’s all about. Yes it starts as a workout but we stick together for the other stuff. Create more of the other stuff, in whatever that way means for you. Clown cars. Happy hours. BBQ events. Hikes and physical challenges. Etc. Let’s keep this momentum rolling folks! Freed to Lead! What’s next?!?
I thought about shouting out all of the amazing food but figured if you know, you know. Come find out next year if you missed it this year. There was one thing in particular that seemingly everybody who tried it kept telling me it was better than my brisket. (Spoiler: it wasn’t the only thing better than my brisket,….i got beat handily by several other items!) but shoutout Sump Pump who had ground filet mignon smash burgers with cheddar and carmelized onions. EVERYBODY kept telling me how much better it was than my thing, almost to the point where I’m still wondering if he paid 4-5 people off to be over the top about it. 🤔
-Steve-O
F3 Louisville 