VeronaTogether has opened registration for its fifth annual charity cornhole tournament. This year, the event will benefit Mallory’s Army and raise awareness about ways to fight bullying in Verona.
This year’s event, Verona Bags Bullying, will be held on Saturday, September 7, on the lawn in front of Town Hall. Like past years, it will be a 64-team March Madness-style tournament and each two-player team is guaranteed two games. The $300 per team fee includes tournament registration, t-shirt, hat and food. (Cornhole, for the uninitiated, involves throwing bean bags at a pitched board with a hole in it.)
Mallory’s Army, a New Jersey nonprofit, was created in 2017 after 12-year-old Mallory Grossman died by suicide following months of bullying at school and online. Verona teenager Vanya Citrano died by suicide in 2016; he had been bullied in elementary and middle school. Verona groups held a variety of events on in-person and online bullying after that, which seemed to tamp down bullying for a while. But last November, a middle school student was subjected to bullying so severe that it resulted in a Verona Police Department report.
“With the topic of bullying on so many people’s minds these days, we felt that Mallory’s Army was a great partner,” says Ryan Dacey, one of VeronaTogether’s founders. “We all know how devastating the effects of bullying can be. This event is meant to educate our whole community–victims, parents, even the potential bullies.” According to Shawn Luftglass, another of VeronaTogether’s founders, Mallory’s mother Dianne Grossman will be speaking at the tournament.
VeronaTogether was founded in 2018 by five Verona residents as a way to provide financial support to people in the community experiencing rare and serious disorders, particularly among children. Since then, the nonprofit has raised more than $140,000 for children affected with cancer, a rare liver disease, a rapid aging condition and a muscular weakness disorder, as well as the charities that address those conditions in other children.
You can register for the cornhole tournament here.
