The group’s annual fundraising field hockey game takes place Aug. 22 in Freeport.

Since 2012, Falcon Pride, comprised of Freeport High School alumni, has aided the distict’s graduates in need. This year, the group will extend a hand to two families: the Wings and the Sweets.

At this moment, Dale Wing’s (class of 1977) wife, Ellen, is battling cancer; seven years ago, Carolyn Arndt Sweet (class of ’90), one of the leaders of Falcon Pride, lost her 6-year-old son Logan to viral myocarditis.

“I was very honored when I heard that some of the profits this year will be going to the Logan Sweet Foundation,” said Sweet. “There were no signs, no symptoms. He just collapsed one night and died instantly in my arms.

“He’d just had his annual physical two days before he passed away, and everything was normal. Two days after, we learned that his heart was 75 percent larger than normal. Four months later, we learned that he had died of viral myocarditis.

The Sweets discovered that if Logan had somehow raised his heart rate while in the doctor’s office – say, by doing jumping jacks – an irregular heart beat may have been audible to his doctor. At rest, however, his heart sounded normal.

The Logan Sweet Foundation works to raise money for the Myocarditis Foundation and to spread word about getting kids’ hearts pumping harder – about doing those jumping jacks – when they visit their doctors.

The Foundation also helps send kids to local summer camps, kids who may not be able to afford going on their own.

“Logan loved summer camp,” says Sweet, “so we give to the Maine Audubon Camp in Falmouth and Wolfe’s Neck Farm camp in Freeport, and we do a healthy snack day at his old school.”

Falcon Pride’s annual fundraising efforts pivot around an alumni field hockey game versus the current high school team and a dinner and auction at Buck’s Naked BBQ on Route 1. This year’s events take place on Saturday, Aug. 22, the game at 11 a.m. at Freeport High School and the meal and auction from 4-8 p.m.

New this year is a lead-in event, a bike night. Such nights are held every other Wednesday at Buck’s. Avid motorcyclists congregate for food, fun and prize giveaways. The Buck’s bike nights happened to be full around Falcon Pride’s target date, though, so FHS alum Todd Sanders, who emcees, arranged for the organization to hold one at Railroad Pub in Lisbon on Tuesday, Aug. 18, from 6-9 p.m.

“Once school is out for the summer, the alumni team starts practicing every Monday,” says Lisa Foster Daniel, another of Falcon Pride’s leaders. The team consists of anywhere from eight to 30 women, ranging in age from recent graduates to members of the class of 1980.

“Providing they haven’t left for college, the recent grads are more than welcome to play against their (former) teammates,” says Daniel. “Marcia (Wood, Freeport’s field hockey head coach) and I like to get the high school girls excited to play us ‘old ladies.’”

Auction items are still rolling in for this year’s feast at Buck’s, but in the past, the loot has included countless gift cards to local restaurants and usually a big-ticket item, such as a weekend in a cabin on Roxbury Pond. Also, 50/50 raffles are held at both the game and the dinner, and a bake sale is held at the game.

Jennifer Meservey Johnson (1990) provided the initial social-media spark that eventually caught fire and grew into Falcon Pride. In addition to Johnson, Daniel and Sweet, the organization’s other leaders are Tara Harrison Coffin (1990), Rebecca Dodge Bellmore (1989), Rebecca Curtis Daniel (1989) and Jason Daniel (1989).

“Through many Facebook feeds, the excitement started building and so many alumni just wanted to help,” says Daniel. “A smaller group put our heads together and Falcon Pride was officially launched.”

“It’s our mission,” says Daniel, “to help as many Freeport alumni as we can, when they are in need, and it just feels good to be a part of that.”

The Falcon Pride alumni field hockey team, in maroon, pose alongside their rivals, the Freeport High School team, in white, back in 2013.Photos courtesy by Kathy SteadmanLisa Waterman Gonneville makes the first pass of Falcon Pride’s first benefit game ever, back in 2012, to Jennifer Meservey Johnson. Gonneville’s daughter, Taylor, looks on. Aug. 11, 2015, marks the one-year anniversary of Gonneville’s passing.