'Holiday Turmoil' To Benefit Viola Blythe Community Center

Ringside tickets are sold out to the Holiday Turmoil benefit that’s taking place on Friday in the Newark Pavilion. The Almighty Sheik will take on Hawkeye Shane Kody in the ring during a wrestling match like no other.

This year, the guys are going to do something different—simultaneously host a toy drive.  

“You see all these toy drives, but you don’t know where the toys go,” said Kirk White, owner of Big Time Wresting.

“We wanted to do something where the toys go to kids here in the Tri City Area,” White said. The Fremont-based business is working with the Viola Blythe Community Center of Newark to collect toys that will be given to children whose parents cannot afford to give them gifts for Christmas.

Debbie Rodgrizuez, program director for the Viola Blythe Community Center, said she is grateful for the help. She’d been reading emails all day from mothers who wanted to attend the event, so their children could have a traditional American Christmas. Many of them are single women raising one child. Some have as many as six. The Center adopts these families and throws them a holiday party where they are fed and given gifts. 

Rodriguez said she was concerned she wouldn't have enough toys to give to all the people who have signed up for the event. She said she needs about 3,000 gifts. The organization doesn’t have the funding to purchase presents for the kids, so it relies on the generosity of the community.  

Volunteers are placing big bins outside of the ring at the Pavilion on Thursday, so people can donate toys in them.

White said people who want to donate should bring toys that are suitable for a child between the ages of 5-10. Already people have started to donate. 

“Yesterday a guy from Fremont who loves wrestling came over to the wrestling school and gave me $100 to go buy toys," White said. “He said he didn’t have time to go buy them, but he wanted to help,” he said. 

Gift cards to the movies or retail stores are good gifts for preteens, said Blythe. 

White expects about 400 people to attend the event on Friday. It starts at 7:30 p.m.  at the Newark Pavilion, located at 6430 Thornton Avenue in Newark, Ca.  General admission tickets are $15 for adults and $7 for children. Tickets are available at btwrestling.com