The Texas Bowl in Houston is quite the trek for those of us Cuse football fans who live in Northeast. After realizing that Reliant Stadium might be void of Orange-clad fans, Sean Keeley, author of How to Grow an Orange and popular Syracuse blogger (known as Nunes Magician) had a brilliant plan to get some Orange into the stands when we face the Golden Gophers on December 27th.
Keeley decided he would encourage Syracuse fans to donate money so that underprivileged kids could go to the game on their behalf. Each child will get a seat in the lower-level end zone, a free tee shirt, and a hot dog/soda.  His original goal was to raise enough to send 200 kids to the bowl.
But, his efforts have gone viral. The Texas Bowl, after noticing this, dropped the ticket price from $50 each to $20 each, allowing for MANY more young fans to have access to this unbelievable opportunity with the money raised by these donations.Â
On his blog, www.nunesmagician.com, Keeley said, “200 used to seem barely attainable. Now, 1,000 seems possible. So let’s do that. Let’s raise enough money to send ONE THOUSAND KIDS to the Texas Bowl.”  Well, the initiative has already surpassed that: as of 5pm on Wednesday, December 18, over $40,000 had been raised. That’s enough to cover the cost of sending over 1000 kids to the Texas Bowl.Â
We interviewed Mr. Keeley to get the scoop on his heartwarming cause that has come just in time for the holidays:Â
How do you think these kids will benefit from being able to attend a bowl game?
At the end of the day, it’s just about providing these kids with a fun experience that they might not otherwise have been able to have. I’ve seen the effect that being a part of a major sporting event can have on a child, it makes them feel like they’re important cause they’re here. So if that happens, that’s great. And if all that happens is the kids go and enjoy themselves and eat free food, well, that’s good too.
After all of your success with this Bowl Game fundraising, would you consider keeping a rolling donation up on our blog so that you could send a handful of underprivileged Syracuse kids to each home game?Â
We’re trying to figure out what the best next step is because clearly there is a desire by Syracuse fans to do these kind of efforts. We might keep a rolling donation. We might do another fundraiser for a basketball game. We might start a scholarship. We just have to figure out what makes the most sense and what people are willing to continually donate to.
What is your advice for anyone who is interested in starting any sort of donation or fundraiser online? In other words, what the key to your magic?
Really know who you’re reaching out to. Know what they want and what makes them happy. I knew that a lot of Syracuse fans couldn’t make it to Houston but wanted to support Syracuse in some way. This seemed like the next logical step. And all we really had to do was present the idea and people just ran with it. They donated, they promoted, they shared. Also, make sure you button up all the details when possible. My big concern was how to connect the charity to the bowl game but I was fortunate enough to find out that the game already had connections to various organizations.
Obviously you will be in attendance on December 27th?
Oh, I wasn’t planning on it but it might be hard to not be there and see the big crowd of kids wearing orange in the stadium. We’ll see…
Is this another one of your efforts to “grow “more little Oranges?
A nice side-effect of the whole endeavor is that we get to introduce a lot of these kids to Syracuse through this. They’ll get orange shirts, get to sit next to the band and meet Otto. Most of all, they’ll see how generous the community is. Obviously the goal is for them to have fun, but if we happen to get a few new little Oranges out of this, all the better!
***Follow him on Twitter @NunesMagician for more updates and visit his website to donate: www.nunesmagician.com !!!!!Â