Recently, the 3rd Annual Wings for Wishes Block Party took place behind Sports Grill South Miami. This year’s March 11th event raised $80,000 with 100% of the proceeds benefitting Make-A-With Southern Florida to grant wishes.
Wings for Wishes Block Party is a family friendly event centered around Sports Grill’s famous chicken wings and raising money to sponsor wishes through Make-A-Wish. The event was co-founded in 2015 by Make-A-Wish Champions Gal Bensaadon and Brian R. Exelbert, two local professionals committed to making life better for kids with life-threatening medical conditions. The success of the event is amazing. As noted by Brian Exelbert, “We’ve been eating at Sports Grill for years, and we approached them about the proposed event. They loved the idea, and in our first year raised $20,000 (4 wishes); year two, $30,000 was raised (6 wishes), and this year we raised $80,000 (16 wishes granted). We have big plans to come…”
The block party format was developed to enhance the experience for the crowd-favorite wing eating competition that featured 71 teams of four hungry wing eaters. For the first round of the competition, each team was required to devour a tray of 50 wings as fast as possible. The six fastest teams who made it to the second round were then required to finish 25 wings as quickly as possible. The winning team, Kobayashi, finished their final tray of wings in just 54 seconds. In addition to supplying the delicious wings for the competition, Sports Grill featured six different tasting stations, allowing all patrons to pair their food with a variety of different craft beers, wine or cocktails. The afternoon was MC’d by Alex De Armas of WSVN Channel 7 News and featured live music, a DJ, and plenty of fun games for kids and adults alike.
-
- Presentation of $80,000 Make-A-Wish check.
-
- Event Co-Founders Brian Exelbert and Gal Bensaadon.
-
- Brian Exelbert and Sports Grill’s Christine Marques.
