Sports have officially ended their fundraisers to finance scholarships for athletes that apply.

The AHS spring sports have held several fundraisers this season to get players active and involved. Each year the Atoms Booster Club awards four student athletes with a one-time $1,000 scholarship contribution to their higher education.  There have been several fundraisers that occurred at once, including the Red Letter Challenge and Spring Raffle Tickets.

For the Red Letter Challenge, the athletes submit ten addresses and affix stamps on the Red Letters. The school then sends these to the athlete’s friends and family, especially out of town supporters.

The Spring Raffle fundraiser is a newer event, where sales are one dollar per ticket, and where local gift cards will be awarded for a short amount of tickets.  All these fundraisers are for the purpose of raising money and compensating seniors for all their hard work as they embark on their journey for a higher education.

The four scholarships available to athletes are the Robert G. Hardage Scholarship, Robert Leibowitz Scholarship, Laura Hagan Smith Scholarship and the Bill Sterns/Darryl Kehrer Scholarship.  Each scholarship is named after an athletic activist, previously within our premises, that helped to improve the sports department and/or lead them to success.

The application process includes a short essay on what it has meant to be an AHS student athlete, as well as a recommendation letter from at least one high school coach.  The scholarships are going to be rewarded to two males and two females.

Though this is a tremendous and relatively simple opportunity to gain money for college, many seniors are either unmotivated to apply or unaware of the opportunity.  Just as well, most seniors are unaware that the majority of spring fundraisers are done to raise money for the scholarships.

“Everyone normally is like ‘ugh, these are stupid’. I don’t believe that the red letters are a good way to raise money just because it seems like begging for money, but the CincoK and the raffle tickets are a much more productive fundraiser,” senior Kaitlin Martindale said.

Most spring athletes share the same opinion on the fundraisers they’ve had this season.

“Once I met the required amount for each fundraiser, I stopped.  I didn’t see any real reason to continue and thought they were pretty pointless,” junior Alex Parado said.