It’s been less than a month since Jen Policky sent out an initial request for area businesses to step up and sponsor different facets of the new Harlem Ambassadors basketball event that will be visiting Guthrie Center in September, and its safe to say, her request has been answered.

In that month’s time, all the quarter sponsorships have been scooped up and numerous player sponsors have also made a commitment to the event. Shannon Neff is working with Policky to organize the game later this year, and she says it has been exciting to see so many different entities in Guthrie Center get behind something completely new.

“We expected that everybody would kind of jump on board.  It is a really unique event and something that we think will be a lot of fun for folks.  So, we assumed… we’ve got a great community and a big group of support, so yeah, we did assume we would have this (support).”

As Neff and Policky get closer to finding all sponsorships for the Harlem Ambassadors event, Neff says Guthrie Center’s roster is almost finalized as well.

“We’re kind of trying to nail down the last two spots–we’re trying to get players from the business community, the school community, law enforcement and places like that so that we have a broad range of participation.”

Chamber President Lonnie Carrick, River Ruckus Coordinator Grant Sheeder and Guthrie Center AD Shane Arp are just a few of the notable Guthrie Center residents currently committed to play.  County Assessor Rusty Pearson will be one of the game’s referees.

Neff says she and Policky are hoping to have all sponsorships filled and rosters finalized by May 31st.