The players separated themselves from the wanna-bes when the Kickemuit Middle School held its first-ever dodgeball tournament Friday, Dec. 9. The real winner in all of it? Some of Warren’s less fortunate.

The tournament raised funds for the KMS Cares fund, a program started in 2009 by KMS guidance secretary Bethanie Maduro-Antonio that aims to help Kickemuit families who are struggling.

“We get donations from staff members and other sources but we always run short on cash,” Ms. Maduro-Antonio said. “This (tournament) is by far the best we’ve ever done.”

Several teams of staff members squared off against a team from the Bristol Warren Education Foundation, and Kickemuit Middle School students fielded their own teams as well. While staff and BWEF members paid to play, it was free for the kids. As for the players and wanna-bes, Ms. Maduro-Antonio said Kickemuit Middle School principal Jared Vance definitely fell into the latter category:

“He came up with the idea” for the tournament, she said. “But he was pretty much a wuss. He talked a big game about his All Star team, but I was very disappointed in him.”

As for her own team, “We crushed.”

The tournament raised close to $800 for the Cares fund, and funds also came in this year from the Robert J. Avila Foundation and the Angela Dolan Memorial Foundation. As a result, the fund’s organizers were able to sponsor 14 families. Ms. Maduro-Antonio and other staff members have already finished shopping (toys, grocery stow gift cards and the like) and will distribute them this Wednesday, Dec. 21.

Ms. Maduro-Antonio said the tournament was fun for everyone, especially the staff members and students. Since it was free for the kids to play, many signed up. They were prompted, she speculates, by the inclusion of KMS Dean of Discipline Jeff Howlett on the staff team.

“They all wanted to go after him,” she said. The next day, “he was hurting. He took some dives and he was pretty sore.”