The Chicago Cubs versus the Chicago White Sox game is a crosstown classic rivalry rooted in North Side vs. South Side history and culture. This year\u2019s game on July 25, while not short of excitement, looked a bit different as Rate hosted its second-annual Military Appreciation Game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The day\u2019s events started at Rate headquarters downtown Chicago, where military guests enjoyed a luncheon and were greeted by people from the corporate office. Four organizations were also in attendance, including Marine Corps Recruiting Command, Hiring Our Heroes, United Through Reading and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).<\/p>\n
Yvonne Coombs, director of military outreach at Rate, began organizing the event earlier this spring to highlight not only what the military community does but to honor its\u00a0standout military family members. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI really wanted to highlight what the military community does, and oftentimes our service members get highlighted \u2014 as they should, very much \u2014 but I also wanted to put a spotlight on some other people in the military community that are sometimes not necessarily forgotten, but not necessarily highlighted as much as we would like them to be. And that\u2019s our military spouses and military children,\u201d Coombs said. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Given this year\u2019s event coincided with the Cubs vs. Sox game, Coombs said, \u201cWe knew we had to make that light shine a little brighter.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The event honored the military spouse of the year from each of the seven military branches. This year\u2019s Hero of the Game was Marine Corps Captain Riley Tejcek, and Cameron Warpinski was the military child who threw out the first pitch. Justin Holmes sang the National Anthem. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The military spouses did a \u201ctake the field\u201d at the beginning of the game and met the starting lineup of the White Sox.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always fun to see the faces of our military spouses and our hero of the game and everybody light up whenever they get the warm reception that they\u2019re getting \u2014 that\u2019s always fun,\u201d Coombs said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One moment that stood out to her was speaking with Vet Tix recipients alongside Dan Moran, Rate\u2019s executive vice president of sales, and Tejcek, to thank them for attending.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat entire section, the entire stands just erupted into cheer for Riley again,\u201d Coombs said. \u201cEverybody stood up, and they\u2019re clapping and they\u2019re chanting USA, USA. It was just such a cool vibe because it was so impromptu. We couldn\u2019t do that even if we tried.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Coombs continued, \u201cThe entire stands \u2014 White Sox and Cubs fans \u2014 came together and were just so excited to see her and honor her and cheer for her, and really they weren\u2019t just necessarily cheering for Riley they were cheering for our service members, and it was just a really cool thing to see.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Families in the military move every two to three years, whether it\u2019s for a new job or position, Coombs noted. While the military does cover some of the moving expenses, Rate looks to add much-needed relief in waiving the loan lender fee for them. To date, Rate has waived more than $65 million in loan lender fees.<\/p>\n
\u201cMilitary families do so much for this community, and we\u2019re trying to do big things and we\u2019re trying to great things so that we can help support them as well and make their moves and transitions as easy as possible so that they can be focused on mission readiness,\u201d Coombs said.<\/p>\n
Year-round, Rate educates service members on the VA home loan process at military installations, so they\u2019re informed and prepared when it\u2019s time to buy a home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just try to give them that education to give them a leg up on this amazing benefit that they\u2019ve earned but to make sure that it ends up being a positive experience for them,\u201d Coombs said.<\/p>\n
Rate\u2019s support extends far beyond the Military Appreciation Game. Throughout the year, the company holds an array of events and education opportunities. During the holidays, Rate hosts Reindeer Rucks, delivering thousands of dollars in toys to on-base organizations that distribute them free to military families. In 2024, Rate hosted six Reindeer Rucks across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe went out and went into those communities and really tried to be a part of it \u2014 more than just writing a check,\u201d Coombs said. \u201cAnd there\u2019s nothing wrong with somebody when that\u2019s what they have the time for and that\u2019s what they want to do \u2014 to write a check, but we also want to be a part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Cubs versus the Chicago White Sox game is a crosstown classic rivalry rooted in North Side…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":168390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[26859,960,1271,96481,5386,1818,1802,5390,96482],"class_list":{"0":"post-168389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-rate","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-crosstown-rivalry","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-military","15":"tag-white-sox","16":"tag-yvonne-coombs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}