It all started out as a fun footnote buried deep in the Twins' game notes, courtesy of an enterprising media relations intern. It has spiraled into what the newly formed Dobnak family hopes can be the start of a meaningful giving relationship.

This holiday season, Randy and Aerial Dobnak are now happily married, recently back from their honeymoon in Saint Lucia and ready for one more cruise before they eventually make their way to Minneapolis for the Twins Winter Caravan, TwinsFest and the Diamond Awards in January. The end of that month will provide another particularly special trip for the newlyweds -- to, of all places, Memphis, Tenn.

First, some background.

As if Randy Dobnak's 2019 hadn't already been crazy enough between a rise from Class A Advanced Fort Myers all the way to the Majors and having to navigate a wedding scheduled during the regular season, he made a splash on social media when some details of his wedding registry became public during his Sept. 20 start against the Royals at Target Field.

Among the selection of items from the registry listed on the Twins' game notes from that day were an Amazon Echo, a 67-inch leaf rake and some Pine-Sol. (That was the proud handiwork of intern Ian Kraft, now with the Seattle Mariners, who had a lot of fun with that note.)

You might recall that the couple decided to take advantage of the publicity by directing interested fans to donate instead to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, which has always been important to Aerial Dobnak due to her lifelong desire to be involved with children and her experience with the loss of a friend to cancer during her freshman year of college at Alderson Broaddus University.

"One of my childhood dreams was to eventually work there one day," Aerial Dobnak said.

After she got in touch with the charity to officially set up the portal, the Dobnaks eventually raised $4,093, far exceeding their initial expectations.

"When I set up the registry for the charity online, I had set a really low goal, just because I hadn't been sure how many people would donate, so I set it for $2,000," Aerial Dobnak said. "And within like eight hours, that goal was already met. So I had to go on there and keep raising our goal higher and higher. Our ultimate goal was $5,000."

But the story didn't end there. A representative of St. Jude reached out to her on social media afterward, wondering if the couple would be willing to engage in more significant involvement with the hospital once the wedding buzz had died down. They jumped at the opportunity, and the Dobnaks will be flown to the hospital in Memphis for a weekend in January to meet patients, connect with fundraising coordinators and evaluate their options for continued future engagement.

The Twins are, of course, no strangers to this kind of charitable involvement, as they have a longstanding relationship with Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul, Minn., and other players like childhood rhabdomyosarcoma survivor Devin Smeltzer have been visibly positive influences on patients.

This plan for the Dobnak family is still in its early stages -- as is Dobnak's career, with the right-hander likely set to compete for the Twins' fifth spot in the starting rotation in 2020. But coming up through the Minor Leagues, the 24-year-old always hoped to make charity an important part of his life -- and he's grateful that the circumstances, strange as they were, conspired to get him onto this track.

"[Aerial] tells me that she would rather volunteer than actually work," Dobnak said. "And I think with the platform I have now, I think that I really help out with getting an opportunity to kick-start and go ahead and do all of that stuff. I think if I can work alongside her with St. Jude throughout my career, however long that will be, I think that's something that will be really special for both of us."