When the door to the executive suite at MCI Center opened Wednesday night, it wasn't to admit the usual suit-and-tie business types.
Instead, in flew a gaggle of preteen girls, lips glossed and hair braided. They hurled themselves past the tasteful interior and into the upholstered seats up front to watch -- sort of -- Georgetown University's first-round National Invitational Tournament basketball game against Boston University.
Michael Barstis hosts Keideshia Parker, left, Corryne Gussom and Brishell Jones at a game.
(Susan Biddle -- The Washington Post)
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"This is so cool," Brishell Jones, 11, screamed to her friends, Keideshia Parker and Corryne Gussom, all sixth-graders at Washington Middle School for Girls in Anacostia, as the Hoya band blared below and the crowd roared.
Standing quietly at the back of the suite, arms folded and smiling, was Michael Barstis, 29, the brains behind the charitable venture that had brought the girls to the suite, lent by a local law firm.
Barstis runs Tickets-4-Kids, which takes unwanted tickets to sporting and cultural events and distributes them to children who otherwise could not afford to go to such events.
In the last two years, working almost single-handedly via laptop, Blackberry and two cell phones, Barstis has parceled out to District kids almost 6,000 donated tickets to Wizards and Georgetown games, DC United matches and Redskins games, as well as golf tournaments, concerts and play.
Tickets-4-Kids is one of several nonprofit organizations in the Washington region that use the Internet and e-mail to accomplish missions that once took an army of volunteers.
E-Buddies, a five-year-old program, matches mentally disabled children and adults with volunteers so they can trade weekly e-mails.
"Even if you're really busy and you travel for your job, you can still do e-Buddies," said Lisa Derx, vice president of the group. Volunteer e-mail mentors include sports entrepreneur Ted Leonsis, Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Derx said.
Another group, Means for Dreams, is a Web-based group that allows District teachers to post their supply or funding needs. Donors check the Web site and choose which projects to fund. Rapidly growing In2Books matches 2,500 volunteers with 5,000 District students electronically. The "pen pals" discuss books distributed by In2Books.
Barstis, who grew up in an affluent family and attended Georgetown Prep, came up with the tickets idea after landing his first job, as a financial analyst for an accounting firm, through networking at a Wizards game. If he could make such a valuable contact at such an event, he thought, why shouldn't less well-off kids have similar opportunities?
Thus was born Tickets-4-Kids.
The idea "is so darn simple, it's brilliant," said Don Chomas, a Greenbelt investment adviser who has donated basketball and tennis tickets to the group.
Brilliant, maybe, but not always simple.
