Happy Holidays Broncos Country!
I think these past Broncos wins are really making this holiday season more memorable than ever! Alongside those wins, the Broncos Cheerleaders have some seasonal events we partake in to make the holidays a special time for everyone! As a Broncos Cheerleader, we understand that we have so many opportunities to reach out and touch the hearts of our fans. No matter what season it is, the cheerleaders are out in the community helping raise awareness for all the special charities and events around Colorado.
During the holidays, however, we have even more reasons to give back and be thankful for every person we meet. I’d like to talk about my 3 favorite events coming up this month!
First off, we have Cheer For The Troops. Every year the cheerleaders send special care packages to our troops for Christmas to remind them how thankful we are for their services. We collect all kinds of donations from shaving kits, to DVDs, and collect a ton of snacks and Broncos collectible items. Of course we always include signed calendars and posters as well!
After all of these goodies are collected, we separate them into categories such as food, toiletries, magazines, etc., and then start packing a wide variety of everything into large boxes. After a full day of packing, taping, labeling, and weighing, we then pack up our cars and head over to the post office where we’ve become very good at creating a shipping assembly line. All of the cheerleaders take part in donating, packing, labeling, and shipping about 50 packages.
Packing these boxes and being there to help ship them off is something that really touches me. As a fourth year member of the DBC, I have been on three of our military entertainment tours including Iraq this past summer. While there, we were able to actually sit and talk with our troops during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Listening to all of their stories and hearing them tell us over and over how thankful they were for our small 12-day visit was extremely humbling and really opened my eyes to how selfless our troops are. I have such a huge appreciation for our military and just hope these packages can put a smile on their face. Thank you to everyone serving in our US Military!
Next up we have our Junior Denver Broncos Cheerleaders family and friends show. While this isn’t exactly a “Holiday” event, it always takes place during the season and is so fun to see all of the excitement in the girls’ eyes. During our junior clinics we are typically teaching our squads their gameday performance routines. But at every clinic we take time to work on a special “squad” routine. There are 16 squads in JDBC, separated by age then separated into AM and PM, so each DBC instructor has anywhere from 25-60 girls. The instructor has the opportunity to get creative because we get to pick our music and choreograph our own squad routines!
After a full season of rehearsing these dances the girls are given the opportunity to perform it, with or without their instructor, recital style at our friends and family show. The DBC even do some holiday dances in our Santa dresses in-between shows. It is so much fun to sit and talk with the girls on this day and watch their confidence come out during their routines. They all have holiday stories they are just dying to tell you and are excited to perform so the energy level is very high.
Even though these girls are young they already know some of the great qualities the DBC program takes pride in. While they are excited for Christmas they also know how important it is to give back to their community during the season. This show helps us remind them how lucky we are to be able to do the things we love and to keep giving back whenever they have the chance.
On to my favorite holiday event, Craig Hospital! Craig Hospital is exclusively dedicated to spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation, and research. Each year, Craig Hospital treats patients from 47-50 states. Every December, the Broncos Cheerleaders bust out our Santa Suits and head over to Craig. Typically we prepare a couple routines to kick off our day there, but this year it will be more of a show with several varieties of dances.
After performing our routines for the patients we get into position for photos. These photos are then printed off for each patient to keep! But the photos don’t end there; we make sure we bring a stack of posters and calendars to hand out as well. While we sign these for everyone, this is our opportunity to get to know the incredible patients staying at Craig. Each person there has such an inspiring story.
After visiting downstairs for a while, we split into two groups and head upstairs to visit the rest of the patients that weren’t able to make it downstairs. With each room we visit we are left with heartwarming and incredible success stories.
My favorite story over the past four years was of a husband and wife in their late 60s from New Jersey. Just a typical day at the beach for this beautiful couple turned into a traumatic life changing event when the man was hit the wrong way by a wave while standing only knee deep in the water. He was scheduled to soon leave the hospital but would be leaving paralyzed from the chest down. Although he couldn’t physically move, the way he and his wife spoke so openly with us and gave us huge thanking hugs before we left touched our hearts forever. It was amazing to see the love and support from his wife and family. And hearing how happy they are together even though life had taken an unexpected turn made me realize that if you stay optimistic and motivated, you get whatever you give out of life.
Every person we meet has a special place in our hearts and will play a big part in our DBC memories for the rest of our lives. With their motivation and the help of the staff Craig Hospital has many amazing success stories and has been ranked in the Top 10 Rehab Hospitals for 20 consecutive years. We can’t wait to see you all soon!
These three events are very special to me and I am grateful for all the opportunities DBC presents. Tis the season to give back to the community and we’re happy to help wherever we can! I hope that everyone has enjoyed this football season and I can’t wait to see what else this month in store!
Until next time, Happy Holiday and Go Broncos!!!
~Jessica
Tags: Cheerleaders, Holiday Cheer, Jessica
Jessica,
Great article. Thank s bunch for keeping us fans informed on your upcoming season events. You ladies represent the Broncos in really special ways. I appreciate easch and every one of you. God bless and Happy Holidays!
I must have some dumb luck, when traumatic things have happened in my life I never had any cheerleaders cheering me up, wrong place wrong time I guess, those are some lucky people who get to be comforted by you nice ladies, keep up the good work.
Broncos 27
Bears 17
Bay, I don’t see this game being a high scoring affair on either side. We have averaged what the mid 20s for points in these last games since TT has taken over, and scoring enough to get the W without embarassing any team with a blowout win. I also don’t see the Bears scoring any td’s with there beat up offense. Your thoughts about the same as mine?
Prediction for the week,
Broncos 24
Bears 10
If the Bears score a TD it should be on ST, but yeah I’m not buying the high score either and even daddybronc has backed down a notch or two going with only a 17-13 win, that right there says it all since he has never predicted us to score less than thirty in the past I don’t think.
But Strand and Turtle both have us scoring over 30, so we’ll see.
I don’t see us getting over 30, but more than 20 and I also don’t see CB getting over 10. I’m still thinking on this one. I am concerned about our December jinx that has been on us in years past.
Prediction
Bears 9
Broncos 27
DENVER BRONCOS – 27
CHICAGO BEARS – 10
Oh, by the way Bay, I also have to agree with your post a bit earlier. I too have been in the hospital numerous times and have yet had any visits from anyone the likes of our beautiful cheerleaders. Those they visit are the luckiest people to ever get sick! (if there is such a luck)
I think our D will create turnovers.
I agree gabe. Our D is going to create havoc on their O for sure. I look for them to have a stellar game.
I can’t wait for the replay tonight. I thought it was funny when Allen said “I would have bet my paycheck that he couldn’t beat us with his arm” LOL, hope you really didn’t bet that. I just wanted to say another thing, I was very proud of Brady Quinn during the game. With everything that he has went through he still thinks about the team and he was right there helping Tim and giving him pointers. That is one stand up guy. I know a lot of you guys are hoping he stays as our backup but honestly I would like to see him go to a team where he will get a legit chance to start. I dont think he got a fair shake in Cleveland and he just got caught in a no win situation here. I think if a team will work with him and give him the time and the game experiance he needs he will be a good QB. One other thing, in the Colquitt interview did any one else notice what he was trying to say without actually saying it? When they asked about if any of the veteran team member were not believing or causing friction he paused and said no, that coach fox made sure of that. Also if anyone was like that they have changed their mind. We all know why Lloyd left but maybe there was a Debby Downer in Orton after all. Just me thinking too much again.
Prediction:
Broncos – 25
Bears – 13
I was thinking ORTON ……. i thought it might have been a little of my extra Orton-b-gone spilling over but glad someone else caught that. haha!
Broncos 23
Chicago 13
shaztah…I for one am glad Orton is gone,and Quinn can follow,cause I don’t think he has what it takes to make it,jomho!
Tebow,Weber,and the 3rd will be a drafted QB.
seweatherman01…. i think it will b a telling game… if our D can keep dominating the entire game and our offense keeps developing i think we have a legit playoff run in the mix.
I’m with you on that BFE, definitely a QB in next year draft, too good a class to pass up if there is even the slightest doubt about your QB situation.
Absolutely. I really don’t see us loosing the remainder of our schedule.
No Cutler, no Forte, the telling game will be the following week against the Pats, not this one, this should be a shoe in victory due to the injuries. Just think of it as what it would be like if we had to go to battle without Tebow and McGahee….
I agree on us drafting a qb, but not sure who is there that has the skillset of TT. That will be the hardest thing to match up, unless we look seriously at the SEC. Most of those teams play the spread like FL did under Meyer.
No TT, McG or Miller…SCARY THOUGHT!
Simple, RG3.
And anyone who wishes to argue that can just go back a couple of blogs, LOL, been there done that.
Denver 30
Bears 13
I figure him gone in 1st roundf though long before we get a chance to select.
Nonsense, we might select at 32, haha.
Oh no, not an argument. I would love to get him, but I just figured he would be gone already.
And that made absolutely zero sense, LOL.
He might end up just about where Tebow went and it just might be our pick…
You honestly think that he will make it out of the top 10 picks, being a Heiseman canidate?
I think cb with first pick would be alot more helpful now and in the long run… adam weber is as good as alot of the qbs in this draft in my opinion. Can u imagine getting a CB even close to as good as Patrick Peterson across from Champ?
Picking at 32 would be sweet!!!
Yeah, because he represents the same dilemna Tebow did, someone will basically be taking a chance on that style of QB, and teams don’t like taking chances with the early picks, specially since there are so many good conventional QBs out there this year.
I hope they draft like last year…. by skill.
At least this year we are no longer in a race for the best draft pick, that was pathetic last year even so it turned out great with Miller.
1 like rg3 what a great pick that would be. i think if we cant get him then we should go defense. rg3 is the only qb that can run a similar offense in the event tebow got hurt. so if not griffin then we should go defense
Qb , CB , DT watever… whoever can make the biggest impact the Team.
We also need to give some attention to our Offense.
picking 32 wow that would be to frickin awsome
So far, Miller, Carter and Franklin have contributed from the draft so still a ways to go to evaluate that draft. Elway said they were hoping for at least 4 starters out of it, so far they’re one short.
no matter what picks we do offense defense it is nice that all we will be doing is adding to what looks like a great group of guys on the already badass broncos.
You have to admit that 3 out 0f 4 ain’t bad though.
i live in oregon so i might be a little biass here but i think lamichael james would be a great pick to add to mcgahee and give us a great speedy back who can also catch balls
Yeah, 750 is good batting average.
i couldnt imagine how tuff it would be to stop an offense that you would have to choose lamichael james tebow or mcgahee on where the ball might go
Broncfalls
Did you ship it by boat?
If so it might of gotten lost somewhere in the Mississippi, LOL.
No landing yet.
I think RG3 will be a top 15 pick or less.
With the drafts again???
RG3 is too good – he creates another QQ.
Tebow may feed off that stuff but I don’t!!! LOL