Giving back: Seats for Soldiers
A real estate entrepreneur's love of the Dallas Mavericks inspired a program to bring R&R to wounded vets.
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| R&R at a Dallas Mavericks game against Utah. |
(Fortune Small Business) -- For the past four years, wounded veterans convalescing at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio have flown by chartered plane to Dallas one night in December to dine at an oak-paneled five-star restaurant and then cheer the Dallas Mavericks, inches from the court. Texas real estate entrepreneur Neal Hawks, 47, helps foot the bill.
Hawks, an avid Mavericks fan, started reading back in 2004 about the recovery struggles of injured servicemen.
"I've had several surgeries myself, and it struck me how hard rehab is," he says. "I tried really hard to think of something unique I could do to show appreciation for what the servicemen had gone through."
The result? Hawks offered up his precious front-row Mavericks tickets to give thanks to the vets.
"I had ten guys the first time, and some were amputees. In the third-quarter break the Mavs honored them and asked them to stand - 20,000 people in the stadium gave them an ovation." When that happened, other season-ticket holders stepped forward, and last year 125 courtside seats were donated to Seats for Soldiers. 
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