Many sports teams and clubs at GCHS require a certain amount of funding to function throughout the school year. Parents or athletes associated with teams understand how much work is involved to fundraise.
Courtney Baird is a mother and an educator in Scott County, along with serving as the president of the GCHS dance team’s booster club. Her daughter, Anna Pryor, is the senior captain of the GCHS dance team. Baird understands that fundraising is what allows more students to participate in school activities. “I am a huge advocate of public-school systems and all the opportunities they provide. I believe all students should have equal access to the variety of opportunities provided,” said Baird. Without fundraising, some students would not be able to afford the cost of the activity.
Junior captain of the dance team, Lilli Smith, does think that it is important and beneficial to get an early start to fundraising in order to help more students participate at little or no cost. “I think it does help to start early, especially for our team because we go to UDA (Universal Dance Association) Camp every year in the summer. Because of fundraising, we can go for free if each dancer does their part instead of paying almost $500 per dancer.”
Fundraising is more successful when all members of a team or club are involved. “I do believe it is crucial to have as much participation as possible from the team and parents,” said Baird. “Participation doesn’t necessarily mean everybody doing everything. However, we all have strengths, and our booster team has worked extremely hard to capitalize on people’s strengths.”
The length of fundraising will vary for each athletic team or club depending on the activities that are scheduled for the year. The dance team has had a year of intense fundraising. “Our team is going to Nationals in Orlando this year, so our fundraising efforts have been nonstop,” said Baird.
Baird has found that some people are surprised at how expensive it can be to run an athletic program. Successful programs typically have many different costs. Baird explained some of the costs that the boosters finance for the dance team. “Some of our big expenses have been camp, uniforms, music, and choreography. We are now focused on raising the funds to take 20 talented dancers to Disney World, so we are looking at money for travel, competitions, lodging and food. When we return, we will be focusing our fundraising for senior celebrations and the banquet. It is expensive, and we want to eliminate the burden from families as much as possible,” stated Baird.
Many teams have different methods for how they fundraise. DT Wells, the district athletic director for Scott County Schools said that, “Some teams rely solely on gate receipts and fundraising to operate each year, and some teams require more money than others in regards to expenses/equipment.”
The district does allow a wide variety of fundraising opportunities, such as spirit card sales, car washes, kids’ camps, restaurant sponsorship nights, etc. The only fundraisers restricted are raffles or games of chance.
It takes the teammates, coaches, and parents working together to make sure that fundraisers are even worth it in the end. “We have also relied on the girls on our team to do the work. They are benefiting from all the fundraising, and they have stepped up to not only work hard in the gym but also volunteering, parking cars, waiting tables, and selling candy bars,” explained Baird.
While many people think that teams receive money from the district, they don’t. “No team at any school receives funding from the district to operate unless it is paying for the facility they are using to practice/play in,” stated Wells.
Even though the district does not directly fund any athletics, they do hold annual fundraisers that help maintain the athletic facilities across the district. .”We have many district level offerings that make fundraising for teams easy; coupon cards, Billy Hicks Classic, Jeep Wrangler Raffle, challenge letters just to name a few,” said Wells.
