FORGIVE 26-year-old Matt Elliott if he seems a mite frazzled.
He's overseeing a fundraiser Friday in Norfolk that will include a silent auction plus swimming, basketball and volleyball. He's hoping to raise tens of thousands of dollars. He's got to figure out catering and security. A day free of rain would help, also.
More important, he'll tell you, the event honors Carlton Dean Jr. and Joey Callahan, two Maury High School graduates whom Elliott knew through swimming, and who died way too young. It's the second annual fundraiser at the Mallory Country Club in West Ghent.
"It fell into place and kind of worked out" last year, he told me this week.
The audacious goal for Friday? Outdo the $31,000 he and supporters raised in 2014, when more than 600 people attended.
Elliott already has set one record: The Hampton Roads Community Foundation says he's the youngest philanthropist to establish an endowed fund in the nonprofit's history. It's a laudable feat. (The previous youngest was 30 when she set up a scholarship in memory of her sister, a foundation spokeswoman told me.)
In June, Elliott turned over $26,000 to start the permanent Dean-Callahan Scholarship Fund. College scholarships will be awarded for the first time next spring for athletes from Norfolk Public Schools, with a preference for swimmers.
The rest of the donations last year helped pay expenses and became seed money for the 2015 event.
Elliott said he'd thought for years about raising money to benefit others - in the same way the community foundation awarded him scholarships while he attended Virginia Military Institute.
He'd known Callahan since they were children. He met Dean later. All attended Maury, though Elliott was a few years older than Callahan and Dean.
"I heard about how good a swimmer (Dean) was, how phenomenal he was," Elliott recalled this week. "But also his character, and how nice of a guy he was.??
Dean was 19 when he was slain in 2012 during an apparent robbery, near his home in Ballentine Place. Five people were charged, but charges were later dropped against four of them.
Callahan, 21, died after jumping from the Granby Street Bridge into the Lafayette River in 2013. Police ruled it an accident.
After their deaths, Elliott said, he thought an athletic event would be a fitting tribute. Both Dean and Callahan played multiple sports.
Elliott got logistical help from the Maury Foundation. Board members from the Mallory Club advised him and agreed to host. Two friends, good with computers, designed a website to publicize the event.
In 2014 and this year, Elliott organized the fundraiser in between his daily tasks. The 2012 VMI graduate is working on a master's degree in civil and environmental engineering at Old Dominion University. He's a student intern at the Hampton Roads Sanitation District. He also coaches summer league swimming.
That's a packed schedule.
Nanette Dean, Carlton's mother, said she hadn't met Elliott before he broached the idea of last year's fundraiser.
"He's an awesome, awesome individual," she told me Wednesday. "I never thought such a tragedy would have brought somebody like him into my life."
The event is 3:30 to 10 p.m. Friday at the club, 907 Weyanoke St. Get more info at www.deancallahan.com, or by calling the club at 625-9741.
Elliott has made a splash - one that's a lasting tribute to his friends, and that will help out Norfolk students.
Catch Roger and other local pundits on "Another View," a program covering issues involving African Americans in Hampton Roads, on 89.5 WHRV-FM at noon Friday.
Roger Chesley, 757-446-2329, roger.chesley@pilotonline.com, pilotonline.com/chesley