Welcome to S.P.L.A.T.

Operation Splat Team Blog

Welcome to our Blog! This is Emily Shimano, Stephanie Do, Alaina Collazo and Briton Valdez speaking. Our goal is to use our combined passion for paintball to set up a paintball fundraising event or tournament style event where all the proceeds will be used to sponsor individual wounded warriors in need.

S upport our soldiers.
P lay with our troops.
L earn what they did.
A id our wounded heroes.
T hank them for everything.

Blog Post Number One

Who is participating in your project?

Emily Shimano, Stephanie Do, Alaina Collazo and Briton Valdez are the people behind this project. 

 What is your area of interest?

Some of us are dedicated paintball players on the team High Voltage. Paintball means a lot to us and it's a lot of fun. We respect and look up to military members, and we frequently meet them in walk on paintball. It takes a lot of guts to go up and risk your life to defend your country. Just playing paintball gets your heart thumping and your head racing; we can't even imagine what it would feel like to be in a situation that was actually dangerous. Briton has two friends who fought in the Vietnam war and it has affected them. He also has family members serving in different branches in the military as we speak. It's important for us to support our military. It's not fair that troops who risk their lives and get injured come home and don't get the support they need.

Do you have any potential partner organizations?

We plan to work with the Wounded Warriors organization. We have connections with people who work for Wounded Warriors. We also want to pair with our regular paintball park Hollywood Sports to arrange the event. 

 

What specific community need are you addressing?

It's about helping families of the wounded troops. They've been through a lot and they deserve better. We want to do this project to not only give financial support to individual troops, but to also thank them and their families for everything they've risked. 

 

What are possible activities or opportunities you may execute beyond fundraising?

We'll play paintball, hold raffles,  make videos and really get to know these soldiers. We want to host a paintball event not only to earn money, but to have a good time and hear these soldier's stories.  It will bring our soldiers closer to the people they've risked their lives for and we will get a chance to show our appreciation for them.

 What do you hope to have accomplished by March?

 We hope to be in contact with several organizations such as the Wounded Warrior Project, as well as the paintball companies Dye, HK Army, and the paintball park Hollywood Sports in Bellflower. We also hope we can get talented paintball teams to join us, such as San Diego Dynasty, LA Ironmen, LA Hitmen, Batteries Not Included, UCI Anteaters, and a few others.

 

How will you plan to achieve your goals?

We will communicate through email and common friends who have positions in the organizations we plan to work with. We go paintballing frequently and can talk to people there. We know a few other paintball teams because of previous tournaments and games we have played in.

How will you measure success?

The obvious way to measure success would be the sum of the money collected that we can donate to aid wounded warriors. However, the more people we get to come out to the event and have fun, the better. The whole project is about learning, respecting, helping, and honoring our troops.