On Nov. 16, the university’s Men’s Club Soccer team and Rotaract Club had partnered up to hold a dodgeball tournament that served as a fundraiser to raise money for purchasing winter supplies for the West Haven community.
Sam Kaplan, president of the Men’s Club Soccer and senior sports management major, said that the tournament was a good way to raise revenue. “There’s not a lot of ways you can raise revenue within the school, so fundraising is a huge opportunity for clubs on campus,” said Kaplan. “So, fun things like dodgeball tournaments are a perfect way to generate revenue and provide more opportunities for the students who are participating.”
An event like this helps to get people to come and learn about the clubs, especially the Rotaract Club who help with community service and outreach. Marcus LeGare, president of the Rotaract Club and senior forensic science major, said this dodgeball tournament helped bring out a lot of people to not just have fun, but also interact with the clubs.
“We all see dodgeball as something really fun that we can do. I know that the weather is getting colder, so we couldn’t really do a soccer [event] like we wanted to,” said LeGare. “We thought dodgeball could be something really fun. I know a lot of people get into it [and] it’s not something that [has] a skill barrier to. It’s just a simple, fun game that the university likes.”
Many students showed up to the dodgeball tournament, letting the fundraiser hosts raise a lot of money going toward buying winter supplies for the West Haven community.
The game was set up on one side of the Rec Center’s Multi-Activity Court where there were blue and gold dodgeballs to represent the school’s Charger Pride. Spectators were allowed as long as they paid to get in and sat by the corners to avoid the area of the court.
Spirits were high as players were laughing and jumping around in anticipation for the event to start. Friends showed up to form teams with one another or to see their peers play.
LeGare said that events such as these help to get the word out about the clubs and help “build up the community that we support.”
LeGare mentioned trying to increase the number of Rotaract Club members who know and care about charity and outreach by next year. “We really want to build it up next year, get some of these freshmen and sophomores who [do not] really think about doing community service into the idea of really helping out the community, and I think this is a great way to get them exposed to this environment,” said LeGare.
Kaplan also said that the partnership between the Rotaract Club and the Men’s Club Soccer helped make the event successful.
“They do a lot of fundraising on their own, so we felt like it was a good opportunity to join along with them as they have great experience on fundraising and we have a lot of connections as a lot of us are part of different organizations,” Kaplan said.
After the event, LeGare informed the Charger Bulletin that the fundraiser raised $205.
If you are interested in seeing more events from the Rotaract Club and Men’s Club Soccer, you can check out their Charger Connection pages or their respective Instagram pages, unewhaven_rotaract and unewhaven.mensclubsoc.
