March is a happy time of year for all of us here at TGRP Solutions. What’s not to love about longer days, more sunshine (mixed with some unpredictable Colorado snowstorms), budding trees, March Madness, and the annual Stukey-Reister Unified Basketball Tournament, now in its 25th year!
The History: TGRP’s Involvement with Chatfield Unified Basketball
Mark is a 1998 graduate of Chatfield High School and learned about the newly formed Chatfield Unified basketball team while he was in college at the University of Colorado Boulder. Chatfield’s Unified basketball league was founded by Clark Stukey, a teacher at Chatfield, and his wife, Heather, a teacher at Littleton High School, in 2000. Chatfield is a Special Olympics Unified Champion School, offering sports and activities that bring students with and without intellectual disabilities together.
As president of his fraternity, Sigma Pi, Mark got the CU chapter involved first in helping coach the team. Once they discovered the team had no games scheduled, they decided to start the March Madness-style tournament, now named the Stukey-Reister Unified Basketball Tournament. It’s evolved and grown in the years since, but still includes players from the Chatfield Unified basketball team, Mark’s Special Olympics community team (many of whom started playing for Coach Mark in high school on the Chatfield Unified basketball team), and others for a day of fun and fellowship.
Going Big in 2025: 19 Teams, 300 Unified Athletes, and Many Volunteers
This year’s Stukey-Reister Unified Basketball Tournament took place on March 1st at Chatfield Senior High. It was a great day with an amazing turnout of volunteers, athletes, supporters and others. All told, the tournament welcomed:
- 298 athletes from 19 teams (from Chatfield Unified and other Special Olympics Colorado community basketball teams throughout the Denver metro area)
- 13 TGRP employees and 15 of their family members
- 45 student volunteers refereeing and scorekeeping (from Chatfield Senior High and Red Rocks Elementary)
- 80 Unified partners who train and compete alongside Unified athletes
- ~15 dancers from the Unified Dance Stars team, who performed twice throughout the tournament
Thank You to the Tournament’s Corporate Sponsors
TGRP Solutions is a proud sponsor of the Stukey-Reister Unified Basketball Tournament, and other sponsors of this year’s tournament included Axia Energy, Schomp Automotive Group, AccuMed, and Steel T Home Services.
We’re excited about the success of this wonderful annual TGRP tradition and grateful to everyone who supports it. Happy March Madness, and we look forward to next year!
A Day with Volunteers of America Colorado
In November 2024, about 20 TGRP employees spent a day working with Volunteers of America Colorado, a nonprofit organization with more than 50 human services programs. One such program is the Mission Community Center, VOA’s daytime shelter on Lawrence Street in downtown Denver. The Mission Community Center provides people with food, clothing, job training, employment assistance, spiritual guidance, and much more.
The TGRP team worked in the VOA Colorado food truck, which serves meals outside of the Mission Community Center two Fridays a month. TGRP donated $1,000 for food and supplies and served soup and bagged lunches on a chilly November Friday to about 200 people.
In addition to this day of service, many TGRP employees donated winter clothing to VOA’s clothes closet, which needed restocking as the weather cooled. This collection and delivery effort was led by our very own Doug Nassif, TGRP’s director of placement and contract solutions. Another big thanks to our managing director of strategic partnerships, Ken Bardsley, who introduced us to this transformational organization.
Service is a TGRP Core Value
Giving back is important to us at TGRP, and service is one of our company’s core values. We feel it is our duty to help people in need and a privilege to make our community a better place. If you ever want to join us for a day of service, please reach out. We’d love to have you!
