For the last four years the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) has sponsored and organized a fundraiser f during October in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The theme this year is baseball with the logo “Save 2nd Base.”
Each of the 18 varsity sports come together to sell T-shirts with the logo in Coates University Center and at sporting events on the weekend to raise donations. The SAAC organizes everything ,and the representatives from each sports team encourage their team to participate in the fundraiser.
“Each fall team that has a home event can choose to do some type of breast cancer awareness game as well,” said Aly Hazelwood, assistant volleyball coach. “Volleyball did a “˜dig pink’ game and wore pink jerseys while the SAAC representatives were selling shirts. Soccer is doing a “˜think pink’ game, and football will always participate by wearing pink during one of their games.” Although selling shirts is the primary way to raise donations, teams are encouraged to do other internal fundraisers.
“In addition to selling shirts, individual teams put on fundraisers of their own, such as coordinating with restaurants like Chipotle and Bird Bakery to donate a portion of their profits for a specific day to the cause or asking parents to pledge to donate a certain amount of money per goal scored at a soccer game, or per birdie at a golf tournament,” said Erin Cusenbary, senior and co-president of SAAC.
“People can give a flat donation of money, or they can cap the amount they would like to pledge,” said Lauren Goldberg, senior and women’s soccer representative for SAAC.
The goal is to sell all of the shirts that were purchased and to raise as much money as possible to support the fight against breast cancer.
“It would be nice to be able to write a check for $5,000 for our total donation, but essentially our goal changes every year and every year we want to do better than we have in the past. Five to ten thousand dollars is typically our goal,” Hazelwood said.
The money raised from sellingT-shirts as well as the individual fundraisers will be donated to the Susan G. Komen foundation and potentially a local breast cancer research organization.
“We have tried to also donate money to local breast cancer organizations, whether it’s research organizations or organizations that help women cope with the disease and cope with treatment,” Hazelwood said.
Another goal of the fundraiser is to raise awareness of breast cancer in general and its effect on the individual.
“Although the shirts say “˜Save 2nd Base,’ the real goal of this fundraiser and the message we are trying to get out is to save more than second base, since cancer affects people, not just their body parts,” Cusenbary said.
While SAAC is mainly trying to raise awareness and donations on Trinity’s campus, they are also trying to coordinate with the opposing team at the final game of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
“The grand finale of sorts for the fundraiser will take place at a baseball game in early November, when our Tiger baseball team will play the University of Oklahoma on their field. We are trying to work with OU’s SAAC team as well so we can present a check with the total amount of money raised at that game,” Cusenbary said.
So far, SAAC and the varsity teams have been successful and gained a lot of attention and awareness on campus, according to Hazelwood.
The sports representatives for SAAC echo the success of the event.
“I think this is a great event, and I am glad that I have been involved with it for the past two years,” Goldberg said. “It is amazing to see how much support there is from the community.”
