Four years ago when Evansville Police officers and Firefighters decided to put on a charity boxing match to benefit local children, 911 Gives Hope and Guns & Hoses were born. After the first Guns & Hoses, 911 gives hope was able to distribute about $20,000 to local children's charities. Today, thanks to the proceeds from the most recent Guns & Hoses event in April, they distributed a whopping $136,613 to local children's charities. The checks were distributed in various increments from $300 to $53,000. When 911 Gives Hope was formed, it was decided that the money distributed would have to benefit children in some way and four years later, the charity group has helped countless kids in the Evansville area and they have even exceeded their own expectations. 911 Gives Hope has expanded their events tremendously over the last few years which now include a huge Christmas toy drive, a 5k run and walk and this year, events will include a golf scramble at the exclusive Victoria National Golf Club in Warrick County and a demolition derby to be held at the Warrick County fairgrounds in October.

The first event that was the launch pad for 911 Gives Hope, was 'Music For Mickey' which was a charity concert put together by Mickey's father, Evansville police officer Patrick Phernetton. Mickey Phernetton suffers from a rare disorder called Prader-Willi syndrome which is basically an enzyme deficiency that helps the body to feel full after eating. People who suffer from prader-willi are constantly hungry and never feel full and without someone controlling what they eat, could very easily eat themselves to death. Very little was known about the disease a few years ago, but that is changing.

The biggest check of $53,000 went to a project being spearheaded by Phernetton to build a prader-willi group home in the Evansville area. There are very few of those homes throughout the country and there is no treatment for prader-willi as of yet. Other charities receiving money today included the Evansville association For the Blind, ARK Crisis Center, the Evansville Shriners and many other organizations and youth groups. Nice job guys and thank you for protecting us day in day out and thank you for protecting our children.

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