Utah Tech University’s women’s volleyball club hosted its first fundraiser – which was a spike in success.
The sand volleyball fundraiser held April 15 was hosted to raise money for the women’s club to compete in a tournament in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Club president Hanna Gates, a junior radiology major from Wayne County said: “The overall idea of it was to make money for us to go to a tournament because we are a new club and we had last-minute fees and dues to play. So we wanted to cover those and make it as least stressful on the girls as we could.”
Gates said around 10 teams competed in the fundraiser and nearly two thousand dollars was raised.
Vice president Emily Wight, a junior art major from West Jordan, said the competing teams in the fundraiser were comprised of four-six people. All the girls in the club were heavily encouraged to participate in a team within the fundraiser.
Each competing team within the fundraiser had a fee of $150. The entirety of the money from those fees is going toward the club and its members for the tournament in Grand Junction.
Club member Ashlee Bueler, a sophomore management major from Camp Verde, Arizona, said the fees will go toward new jerseys for the club, food and the Airbnb for their tournament in Grand Junction.
Wight said: “We were deciding for a long time how much we wanted [the price] to be, but we know that people will come out and support us. We had a lot of our men’s clubs make teams and then we had some community members that came and supported us and made a team. It was a lot of students [participating], but the team that ended up winning it actually was mostly just community [members].”
Bueler said because this is a new club, the goal of the fundraiser was to mainly raise money, but it also met the goal of everyone meeting new people who share one common love – volleyball.
The club was officially formed right after spring break and had to get the word out through Instagram and campus resources like the Human Performance Center.
Wight said: “We are a club, so we have to remain open always; we’ll always have open gyms that girls can come check out and see what it’s like. We will have a tryout though for our tournaments. At the beginning of fall we’ll hold tryouts again. We’re a new club, but we are getting off to a really good start.”
Wight said future fundraisers will be expected as soon as summer and most likely during the fall semester.
Wight said, “We’re planning on trying to make it to nationals next year so that means we have to qualify [for] the regional tournament…we’re really excited about the future and playing in some competitive tournaments.”
More information about the women’s volleyball club can be found on their Instagram.
