Howell’s Annual Boat Giveaway Generates Thousands for Alabama Charity
What started out as a way to help a small organization doing important work to get the funding they needed has turned into the most important fundraiser of the year for MLF pro Randy Howell.
Back in 2007, Howell was contacted by King’s Home to see if he would be interested in teaching some children how to fish. King’s Home is a 45-year-old charity and ministry organization that serves kids, teens and women in Alabama that have been displaced due to domestic violence, neglect, homelessness or abandonment. Howell jumped at the chance to help out any way he could.
“Once I got around those kids and saw the work that King’s Home was doing with them, it really hit my heart,” Howell said. “It was meant to be that they contacted me. I knew right then that I needed to try to help them in any way I could.”
Raising Money Through the Giveaway
The way Howell decided to help was with a boat giveaway. The Alabama pro’s fully decked-out Triton usually comes with a pretty price tag attached to it. However, the Triton pro gave anyone who bought a $100 ticket a chance to win his tournament bass boat from the previous season.
“We first started the boat giveaway nine years ago and raised almost $100,000,” Howell said of the first giveaway in 2011. “King’s Home was a small organization, so I knew that if we just continued to get their name out there that we would only see the amount of money raised continue to increase over the years.”
Howell was correct in his assumption: Over the course of eight years, his boat giveaway has raised more than $1.2 million for King’s Home. People from 40 states and several different countries have entered to win Howell’s boat in that time, and 2018 was the most successful year to date, with $217,000 donated to King’s Home.
Howell expects this year to be the biggest donation yet.
Howell says this boat giveaway is one of his favorite times of the year because of what King’s Home means not only to him, but the families and children it helps.
“The boat giveaway is now King’s Home’s biggest fundraiser, and I’m just really proud to be a part of it,” Howell said. “Over the past nine years, I’ve seen little kids that were in bad situations grow up and graduate high school thanks to the nurturing environment King’s Home provides.
“Last year, King’s Home had 12 boys and girls graduate from high school. Eleven of them earned scholarship dollars for college while one joined the military. It’s just amazing to see what these kids accomplish coming from the tough environments they were in. Anything is possible for those kids thanks to King’s Home.”
The Boat and How to Enter
This year’s boat is Howell’s 2019 Triton 21 TrX Elite with a Mercury 250 Pro XS 4 Stroke engine. It’s loaded with two Lowrance HDS 12 Live units, Minn Kota Ultrex trolling motor, Keelshield, custom matching Bob’s Machine Shop Hydraulic Jack Plate, 8-foot Power-Pole Blades, custom Bluewater LED lighting package, four Odyssey batteries, T-H Marine HydroWave and accessories, stainless steel fenders and 17-inch General Tires with custom wheel package.
Howell used this boat during the 2019 Bass Pro Tour season. It has a retail value of over $85,000.
Tickets for the giveaway are $100 each, and there are no limits on the number of ticket donations you can make. All tickets are tax-deductible and you don’t have to be present at the drawing to win the boat.
Tickets donations can be purchased at KingsHome.com/RandyHowell or by calling the King’s Home office at (205) 678-8331. The drawing will take place on November 23 and ticket donations will be taken until noon that day.