Earlier on that same day, touch football games were being played in a Springboro backyard. There were 20 players, five on the four teams, and the few spectators there stood close to the fire pit to fight off the morning chill.
When you know the story, it’s easy to see which football games made the biggest impact.
The third annual Nemeth Turkey Bowl was held at the home of Jay and Trisha Nemeth and proceeds were donated to the Women of Alabaster, a faith-based organization that cares for victims of sexual trafficking and substance abuse by providing alternatives to street life.
Nemeth, 54, a State Farm Insurance agent and past president of the Middletown Rotary Club, said about $10,000 was raised this year, pushing the three-year total close to $36,000.
“Thanksgiving is about thanks and giving and we did both,” he said.
Nemeth played in similar charity Thanksgiving football games called the Mike Meadows Turkey Bowl for 30 years in his hometown of Medina. Three years ago, he hosted the games in his yard.
The first year, proceeds benefited Sleep in Heavenly Peace Butler County, an organization that builds beds for the less fortunate, and a Dayton family that needed a front door and a HVAC system.
The 2023 Nemeth Turkey Bowl supported the ALS Therapy Development Institute, the world’s foremost drug discovery lab focused solely on finding a cure for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.
That year the football tournament was dedicated to Nemeth’s lifetime friend and fellow Medina High School graduate Randy McCoy, who was in the later stages of ALS.
When it was time to name a financial beneficiary of this year’s games, Trish Nemeth suggested honoring her sister, Tracey Morgan-Ford, who died last year from complications related to an infection she ignored as she became progressively ill in November.
Too often, from a very young age, Morgan-Ford’s kind, sweet spirit came with a vulnerability that allowed people into her life who took advantage and influenced her in unhealthy ways, her sister said. From her early teen years, she began dealing with her trauma and her pain with “medicine” that fueled an addiction she would battle all her life and take her places she would repeatedly regretted, her sister said.
While Morgan-Ford never used services at Women of Alabaster, she “lived a life” like other women the group helps, Jason Nemeth said.
“This was a great way to honor her,” Nemeth said of his late sister-in-law.
Scarlet Hudson, 66, founder of Women of Alabaster that has locations in Hamilton and Over-The-Rhine and plans to open in Middletown, described Morgan-Ford as “a typical girl that we take care of every day.”
Trisha Nemeth said she was “very humbled and grateful” for the support of family and friends and for Women of Alabaster “saving lives on the frontline of a war most people don’t even know exists.”
Hudson said the ministry meets women on the streets and in the Butler and Hamilton county jails. In the day ministry, the women are provided a hot meal, clothing, a shower, and if they agree, counseling.
Just in September, the organization had 285 encounters with vulnerable and victimized women on the streets and in jail, Hudson said.
She said the goal is to provide the women a “pathway for freedom.”
Jay Nemeth said it was “perfect” that proceeds were donated to an organization that may save the lives of women struggling wth the same sicknesses of his sister-in-law.
“God leads a plan,” he said. “Sometimes the Holy Spirit gives you a nudge and you ask, ‘Why wouldn’t I?’”
Then he changed that thought: “Why wouldn’t we?”
When it comes to charitable contributions, that would be a perfect slogan for all those associated with the NFL.
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