From bake sales in the lobby to selling boxes of candy throughout the school building, athletic teams find many ways to fundraise for their financial needs. Having to pay for uniforms, equipment, tournaments, and invitationals, teams need to fundraise in order to stay out of the red.
The funds for sports teams come from one big bank account for the whole athletic department. Athletic Director Keith Hanson oversees how much each team owes, but it’s up to the teams to handle their finances.
In addition, Mr. Hanson as well as COSA Sarah Oberlander play a role in the scheduling of fundraisers. Teams coordinate with Ms. Oberlander to see what times the lobby is free while Mr. Hanson makes sure that the gym is free.
Many of the things teams have to pay for are costly and put a hole in teams’ budgets. For example, the average baseball tournament for high school teams is $300. Uniforms cost usually around $100 for a decent jersey, pants, hat, belt, and pair of socks. Add team bats, helmets, and the countless amounts of baseballs you need to refill due to losing them and your team has spent a pretty good amount of money. This doesn’t only apply to baseball but to every sport in school.
Being very active in the school’s fundraising scene, the girls track team hosts one of the biggest fundraisers of the entire school year with the student vs. teacher Nerf Evasion Dodgeball Game. According to assistant coach Adam Stonehill, this fundraiser raises anywhere from $1,100-$1,600 a year with this year’s total amounting to around $1,200. Mr. Stonehill included that “much of the money pays for equipment and invitational meets, which are the biggest things we need to pay for.”
This need for money for new equipment is also seen on the boys track team. With the newly added weight throw event, girls and boys track teams have to buy a high school certified throwing weight to practice with and use in meets.
According to senior Minhaj Rahman, throwing equipment is very costly. The javelin, for example, can range anywhere from $1,000-$8,000.
In response to fundraising, Minhaj said that raising money is “really difficult.People think that the track team doesn’t require any equipment because all we do is run but they fail to realize that we have a vast amount of equipment for the field.
Throwing implements, hurdles, jumping mats, etc. Those are not all cheap costing a couple of hundred dollars.” Overall, Minhaj believes that the work of countless bake sales and selling of candy is all worth it.
Fundraising is important for the girls swim team.
Sophomore Alexis Sarabia commented on the creative swimathon, in which “the freshman on the team get donations from friends, family, teachers, and other people and they swim as many laps as they can to raise money.”
Alexis is a very big fan of this fundraiser saying that its a tradition for the swim team, “every freshman does it.” It also proved to be lucrative last year with the proceeds being used to buy new team suits.
Alexis is also a member of the wrestling team and included how the team sells candy to fundraise. In her opinion, “selling candy and baked goods is really successful for making money because the candy and snacks are sold at cheap prices.”
She added that the selling of candy and baked goods is really successful because students like the quality snacks which provide a variety to the students, different from the monotonous choices in the school vending machines.
Another big fundraiser is held by the girls varsity basketball team. Hosted at Pizzeria Uno’s, the team passes out flyers to attract people to go to Pizzeria Uno’s to have a meal there and help out our team at the same time.
In response to the amount of profit it yields, team member and junior Tanja Miketic said, “a percentage of the bill goes directly to the Girl’s Basketball fund. It really assists the team with paying for tournaments and other expenses.”
Fundraising in a small school is a hard thing to do, especially for the athletic teams. Between all the equipment, tournaments, uniforms, and more, it’s very hard to be able to afford these without breaking budget. But creative and lucrative can be a smash hit among the student body, which helps our school’s athletic teams not only get what they need but represent our school.
