Just like a lot of school sports in North America, Florida’s Duvall County school sports have been on the line this year. The difference this year as all years has been their community fundraising efforts. The teams did the usual school fundraising activities and combined them with corporate sponsorship. Once the work got out into the community corporate and personal donations started to roll in.
One donor alone contributed over 24,000 for the tennis program and Florida Blue, with the cooperation of the Gator Bowl Association and others, raised $50,000 for cross-country during a 5K run held at EverBank Field earlier in August.
SCHOOL SPORTS ON LIST TO BE CUT
VARSITY SPORTS Students Participating
Cross-country 190 boys, 219 girls
Golf 102 boys, 83 girls
Slow-pitch softball 257 girls
Wrestling 252 boys
Lacrosse 194 boys, 176 girls
Tennis 134 boys, 175 girls
School officials said $43,724 was raised for each sport to keep them alive. There are four remaining sports programs that are continuing to raise the money needed to continue their sport. Those include slow-pitch softball, wrestling, lacrosse and boys junior varsity soccer. About $40,000-$45,000 is needed for these four programs to be offered this school year.
The story isn’t new for many school sports programs. Fundraising has been a long term contributor to keeping these sports going annually. If your school is in the same financial situation, contact a professional fundraising company to keep your high school sports teams going.
Twitter @justfundraising
