I found this blog I wrote from last year. Thought I’d post it here:
HS Swim Season 2015
This year we absolutely need to raise money, but we also need to raise awareness that, YES, we do have a swimming and diving team. We need to get the word out and make some noise so others will recognize what a great sport it is. One of the things I’ve put together for the kids this year was spirit wear. I’m not sure what they’ve really had in the past, but I know for as long as we’ve been here, I have never seen any spirit wear other than the normal football, basketball, soccer or track (and I think that’s just because Matthew has some) – the usual suspects. Anyway, so I made up a design and sent it into the printers. They in turn sent me back some AMAZING designs based on mine and we were off! I picked out several items that I thought the kids might enjoy including 2 different styles of sweatpants, hoodie, long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt and pajama pants. I also put an option for embroidered beanies – one for dive and one for swim. The pants were a huge hit with the kids. Instead of the usual mascot name down the leg, this time they say SWIMMING. There is also a paw print with our high school initials in it at the top. They really loved to show what sport they are participating in. I didn’t use this as a fundraiser, simply because I wanted to make it affordable for the kids. I have another idea in the works for spirit wear that will be an incredible fundraiser for the team but that is something totally different and I’ll share with yall at a later date, though!
Another way we got the ‘team out there’, so to speak, and raised a little bit of money on top of that, was right before Christmas. This was a lot of fun. I set up a Sunday afternoon at our local coffee house and we wrapped gifts for tips:) Social media is the best tool ever to get the word out now, about anything! You get on Facebook make and event and have your friends share it around, *BOOM!* free advertising that costs nothing. The kids each brought in their own wrapping paper, ribbons or bows and we had a great time. I was worried that people might not like dragging their presents out of the house and lugging them up to the coffee house but they actually did:)
A little backstory on this idea though: When Borders was still open, every Christmas, we (Elementary PTC) would have a full day that we would wrap gifts for tips there. Some people would tip, some veeeeeeeery generously and some not at all. But that was ok. It was just such a good time to be there. (My friends, Karyn and Jeanette, and I would always take the last shift (til midnight) and then go have breakfast afterwards — but I digress:) ) Borders would donate the paper, tape and scissors and when people bought books, they would bring them to us to wrap them up. Also, it was the grown-ups (moms and dads) that would wrap.
Anyway, yes, worried that people wouldn’t show up and then also worried about the team’s wrapping skills. WHICH I have to say my Matthew’s was. The. Worst:) I was horrified when I saw him wrap the first gift – not to mention the look of horror on the face of the donor who was trying so hard to be gracious, bless her heart! I quickly unwrapped and showed him how to do it a bit more neatly:) Note to self: Gift wrapping practice before next year’s event!
Back on point, it was more to get the team out there than to make money but we did do awfully well for that 2 ½ hour session. *YaY!*
Just like fundraisers, I am always trying to think of something else to get the team out there. Our younger swimmers are really talking about it now, too. Matthew recruited hard to bring swimmers to the team this year. Some of those kids brought other kids. We began with around 26 swimmers and we are mid season with 20. So not to bad! We have 3 Seniors leaving this year, and hopefully a new lot of Freshmen to come in next year.
Yeah… my brain pretty much never shuts down. I wish it would from time to time because it can be exhausting, but I want to give his team every advantage and in return give Matthew every advantage, of achieving goals and having the tools and resources to get there:)
Speak Soon!
take care,
~kat
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