The following article was submitted by Sandi Burda.
It took a Valparaiso football player, a church member, a high school coach and the Valparaiso community to come together to make a local child’s Christmas wish come true.
The Monday before Christmas, Thomas Burda was asked to stop and see his head football coach. When Burda went to see him, he was told that there was a boy named Jesse from a neighboring town that put a request on an Angel Tree tag at a local Nazarene church. A member of the Nazarene church saw that tag and said to himself, “I can make that happen.” She took the tag and contacted another member of the church who happened to be a coach at Burda’s high school who then contacted Burda’s football coach.
The young boy’s request was a signed football from Burda. He signed the football and a Christmas card for the boy and thought that was it. He told us about it when he came home after school, and he thought he knew who the boy was but wasn’t 100% sure. One of the things he said to us was, “Why me? I just play football.”
Burda is a very humble young man and doesn’t see that what he does impacts the younger generation of football players in our neighborhood. He signed the football for the young boy regardless of who he was.
On Christmas morning, we received a photo from the family of the young boy who received the football, and it was in fact whom Burda thought it was: Jesse Casas. In school, the kids were asked to write down one thing that they wished for for Christmas. The tags were then distributed to local church Angel Trees, which is how Jesse’s tag ended up at the Nazarene church in Crown Point. Jesse didn’t ask for an Xbox or Playstation; he asked for a signed football from Burda, who is his hero. Jesse played Pop Warner Little Scholars football for the first time this year and was able to pick his own number. The number he picked was 4, just like Burda.
Neither of our families knew this was happening; it was a surprise to all of us. We did go over for a visit and took pictures with Burda and Jesse on Christmas Day.
The mantra in town is “We are Valpo.” The programs are trying to be as one, from the Pop Warner level all the way to the high school level. Burda truly didn’t realize how the littles look up to him and the other high school players until now.