Bluffton native helps build a non-profit that connects Hoosier fans with football and basketball tickets
By JESSICA BRICKER
Kenzie Huse, an 8-year-old girl from Ohio, and her family drove three hours to fulfill her dream of cheering on the Hoosiers in Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall for the first time as they watched the Indiana University women’s basketball team beat Maryland Jan. 2 in a Top 10 match-up.
Already at 5-foot-3-inches tall, she wants to play hoops like 6-3 IU forward Mackenzie Holmes. After the game, Holmes thanked her young fan via Twitter for showing her support.
A couple weeks before, Dalton Nelson was home on leave from the U.S. Army and took his mom Sandy to his first IU men’s basketball game in Assembly Hall.
The Huse family and the Nelsons are among the hundreds of recipients so far of the Hoosier Ticket Project, a new non-profit organization that connects IU fans who have never attended a home IU football or basketball game with game tickets from donors.
“Thank you donors,” Courtney Huse posted on social media. “This made (Kenzie’s) year. What an amazing program to make (an) IU fan’s dream come true.”
An original part of the Hoosier Ticket Project team is Jason Gerdom, a lifelong IU fan and 1994 Norwell High School graduate who grew up in Bluffton.
“It has been so much more rewarding than I anticipated,” Gerdom said of the effort, which officially launched less than two months ago.
The response so far has been more than any of the organizers expected right out of the gate, he said. The bulk of the effort has been through social media, and most of that has been on Twitter.
“It’s really been awesome to see the response from Indiana fans and alumni,” he said.
It all started with a tweet and a germ of an idea.
In March 2019, the men’s program made it into the National Invitation Tournament. An IU fan account, “Martha the Mop Lady” — named in honor of the iconic subject of the Indiana Farm Bureau commercial dating back to the 1970s — tweeted a call out for those who hadn’t been to a game in Assembly Hall. “Martha” wanted to get them to a game.
In response, people started reaching out about donating tickets, and that’s what Gerdom did. He said as someone who grew up watching IU, it was neat to be a part of that.
Through that effort on social media, Gerdom was connected with Josh Bruick, a Fort Wayne resident who is from Columbia City. After they met, they realized their mothers went to school together at Norwell.
Bruick had the idea of turning the ticket effort into a non-profit, and Gerdom discovered the Husky Ticket Project at the University of Connecticut, which has a similar effort for just youth through financial donations only. The idea for IU athletics took shape with another layer of difficulty, Gerdom said, as they match donated tickets with fans.
“The complexity is pretty remarkable, especially when you start talking about that kind of scale,” he said of pairing dozens of tickets with applicants.
Last summer they — Bruick as chief executive officer and Gerdom as chief operating officer — received 501(c)(3) status and brought on Amanda Pavelka as director of engagement. Other alumni offered their skills and talents to create a website, logo imaging, and accounting services. Gerdom uses his own information technology skills — he works at the Harvard Business School doing IT work — for the back-end tech systems needed for the project.
As the “Martha” IU fan account connected fans with football tickets last fall, Gerdom, Bruick and Pavelka worked to create the non-profit that launched in mid-December to take over the basketball ticket effort.
Immediately after the launch, they sent the first recipients — a father and son — to the Crossroads Classic in Indianapolis that weekend.
“Then it blew up,” Gerdom recalled.
They thought they’d get a handful of tickets for non-conference games. Instead, they sent 40 people to the Northern Kentucky game.
“It was unbelievable,” Gerdom said. “We’ve had very generous financial donations that have come in and we haven’t even really tried fundraising yet that hard.”
The project sent another 20 to 25 fans to the Ohio State game, and they sent 45 people to the Penn State game.
“That’s the one that blew us away,” he said.
Tickets in the balcony at Assembly were selling for $200-plus each, Gerdom said of the Purdue game. And they had a couple people donate tickets instead of selling them — all to benefit fellow Hoosier fans.
According to data on hoosierticketproject.org, more than 200 donors have contributed for more than 425 recipients to attend 55-plus IU games.
- “The Hoosier Ticket Project … wants to remove financial barriers preventing fans from attending Indiana University athletic events in person by leveraging the generosity of alumni and fans. Through ticket donations and financial gifts, the Hoosier Ticket Project provides tickets to individuals and families, helps the athletic department increase attendance, and gives Hoosier student-athletes the best home-crowd environment possible. The project was founded by a group of loyal Hoosier fans as a way of giving back to the university that has given so much to them.” — Project’s vision
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Gerdom is an IU graduate who describes himself as “highly engaged” while he was studying in Bloomington. Gerdom grew up cheering for the Hoosiers and it was the only college he applied to.
He can trace his interest in non-profit work — and his continuing involvement with other IU alumni even as a Boston resident — to being raised in Wells County.
“I grew up in a family that was in service of others,” he said.
His dad Dan was a police officer for 23 years and his mom Darlene was a nurse in Bluffton. His brother Justin is a firefighter. Gerdom himself completed countless service projects as a Boy Scout.
“I think it matters a lot that I came from a small town where people know each other and help each other. It’s not a big deal to go help somebody that you know or help somebody you don’t know. I think that coming from a town like Bluffton and going to a relatively small school like Norwell where you just knew everybody, that background of service and community, I think that makes a huge difference in my overall interest in giving back and philanthropy and time and effort that I put into things,” he said.
“I attribute that all directly back to my parents and the people around (the community).”
He said it’s because of his mom’s love of IU basketball that he became a fan and wanted to go there to study. And the Hoosier Ticket Project can plant that seed for young fans too, or it can be as simple as providing a family a memorable experience at an iconic basketball venue.
“A lot of (the interest) comes from people remembering their first time going to Assembly Hall and they remember how special it is,” Gerdom said. “We get notes about that all the time, like, ‘I remember how awesome it was the first time I could take my mom to Assembly Hall. Here’s the donation.’ Or, ‘Here are two tickets because I can’t use them and I want somebody else to be able to take somebody for the first time.’”
Gerdom said he, Bruick and Pavelka have learned so much throughout this process that they would like to help other universities’ fans who may want to start an effort like this. Another goal for the organization is for Pavelka to create a complete game-day experience for the fans.
Hearing stories from the fans chosen to receive tickets is the rewarding part, Gerdom said.
“It’s really been incredible, the generosity we’ve been seeing and we don’t feel like we’ve even tried very hard yet because we’re still learning and launching and we’ve made no financial appeals but people have been very generous. It’s been amazing,” he said, later adding, “I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.”
jessica@news-banner.com
Editor’s Note: This story has been corrected to clarify the ticket count for Penn State game.
