On Oct. 10, the University of Michigan-Flint’s Women’s Club Soccer team played against Washtenaw Community College’s Club Women’s Soccer Team for their inaugural Pink Out game. The game was a fundraiser for the team, where they sold pink T-shirts and voucher tickets for Happy Camper Ice Cream’s food truck to raise funds. UM-Flint won 8-0, the team’s third win of the season.
The event began earlier in the day with the team participating in the Making Strides Breast Cancer Walk in Downtown Flint to help raise money for the American Cancer Society. The team’s Fundraising Manager Arin O’Brien, a sophomore biochemistry major, said the walk and the event are ways for the team to serve their community.
“With the walk this morning, we were trying to help fundraise money for the American Cancer Association,” O’Brien said. “Our summer camp helps out the community; it helps younger kids start getting more comfortable with soccer and just bonding together.”
The team partnered with the UM-Flint Office of the Dean of Students and the Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of Students, Julie Snyder, to raise awareness for breast cancer. Samaria Banks, a sophomore human biology major, treasurer for the eboard and right back midfielder for the team, said the event was a way for the team to branch out and help the community.
“It’s just a great way for us to come together as a team and do something more than just kick a ball around. It actually has some meaning behind it,” Banks said.
The team’s regular games are free to attend, so the team needs to fundraise in other ways to pay for fees. Abby Weycker, a graduate student seeking a master’s in Leadership and Organizational Dynamics, and a member of the team’s executive board as marketing and fundraising manager, said that Giving Bluedays are typically the biggest fundraiser for the team. But doing fundraising during the season allows them to make money for team events, their spot at the sports center and other materials the team requires.
“Everything we do, we need fundraising in order to pay for it. Like this dome you see, this game doesn’t get paid for without fundraising; we can’t use it, we wouldn’t have a field without money. The ref fees, the uniforms, the everything comes down to that, and a lot of it has to do with our fundraising efforts as a team,” Weycker said.
Overall, the team profited $361 from the fundraiser.
Haley Bowman is a write for the Michigan Times, she can be reached at haleybow@umich.edu.
