East High School is a place full of extracurricular activities, no matter what you are interested in, there is something for you. Almost all of the activities at East have to be paid for some way, but how? East High does fundraising for over 21 extracurricular activities and in all of those included activities most of the fundraising work is done by students. But how do the students and their families feel about this, why is fundraising needed, and does it actually help?
“The booster club donated back $40,000 to groups that worked with them,” Activities director Lyle Fedders said.
That $40,000 included band, choir, debate, and speech. These activities received $27,000 while the rest of the $40,000 went to help other activities and sports. Fedders works really hard to make sure that every sport gets everything they need in order to have the best reason they possibly can.
“I want to make sure I’m getting enough money to make everything worth it,” Fedders said. Although fundraising is hard work, in the end it all comes together to better every team.
Although there are a lot of donations, students still have to do a lot of work in order to have enough funding to afford necessities. There are many ways teams can raise money, selling company discount cards, car wash cards, selling candles, cookie dough, apparel, and many other items. Most of the money comes from gate entries which are the people who come to games. Fundraising is hard work but overall can help benefit teams.
“Time management is very important, managing time correctly when fundraising will have you succeed in a good social life and reaching your team goals,” junior Ethan Straight said. Straight participates in cross country, boys swimming, orchestra, GT (gifted and talented), and is going to play in the band for the school musical.
Although these activities are very involved not all of them need to do fundraising in order to succeed, but the activities that do fundraising work their hardest to reach their goals.
“Some days it is a challenge to balance everything out,” junior Brittany Ferrell Harris said.
Harris participates in girls swimming, and soccer. Fundraising is a means of raising money for people or activities that need financial support. Every school has a certain budget that it needs to stick to. But because of that budget not all activities get as much money as they would like for everything they need to support themselves, this presents the need of fundraising.
“I think fundraising is good for activities,” senior John Rickabaugh said.
Lots of students are familiar with having to fundraise for the activities they participate in. Rickabaugh participates in cross country, boys swimming, track, student government, and GSA (gay straight alliance). Multiple students understand the necessity of fundraising and how it helps them reach their goals and allows them to improve in the long run.
“With fundraising, the cross country team was able to afford a new tent,” Straight said.
Every sport at East High School fundraises to help themselves get things they need, that is 21 different sports trying to find a way to get enough money for them to continue into the season and be the best they can be.
“I feel like fundraising is a good thing,” Harris said. “It can be used to raise money, but also bring a team together by spending time with each other.”