Dodgeball event raises awareness
February 16, 2010 by Lee Green · Leave a Comment
The Court Appointed Special Advocates South Plains group hosted its fourth annual dodgeball tournament Jan. 30 at Estacado High School.
More than 40 teams from the region braved icy conditions to take part in the event, including Adrenaline Rush, a team of students from the University of Oklahoma who won the tournament in 2009.
“We drove in the ice storm on Thursday night,” said Scott Strittmatter, a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma from Carrollton, Texas. “We left at 5:30 (p.m.) and got here at 1:30 in the morning yesterday.”
Rearing up to strike an opponent, these dodgeball competitors are raising money for CASA South Plains.
Despite the storm, Strittmatter said there was never a thought of missing the tournament.
“We heard the storm and we checked the Doppler radars and everything, but we were just determined to come because we had to come defend our title.”
The tournament not only raised money for CASA’s volunteer training program, Development Director Rose Carkeet said, it provided a chance to inform the attendees and the community about the organization.
Melissa Hurst, supervisor for CASA South Plains, participated in addition to working. She said the importance of the tournament helping raise awareness of children who need advocates.
“The dodgeball tournament is held every year to bring awareness to our community to bring people out here to raise the awareness that these children who are in foster care in the South Plains need advocates,” she said.
Despite the serious nature of CASA, Carkeet said the mood at the tournament was festive. Unlike most organizations trying to raise awareness with golf tournaments and races, she said playing dodgeball gave what would have been a traditional fundraising atmosphere, a fun and different spin.
“There are some returning teams every year that are hilarious,” she said. “There’s one team that they get together and watch the movie ‘Dodgeball’ the night before. And there’s college buddies and it’s their chance every year to get together and come to our dodgeball tournament, so we’re honored to be the reason they get together every year.”
Of the 500 people who participated in the tournament, Carkeet said, there was a great university presence. In addition to all CASA interns being Texas Tech University students, teams – such as the Texas Tech Habitat for Humanity team – were made entirely of students.
Tyler Bailey, a senior accounting major from Houston and member of Texas Tech’s Habitat For Humanity Team, said the fourth annual tournament was the first time the chapter of the organization participated.
He said similar to the goal of Habitat for Humanity being to give something back to the community, CASA’s willingness to benefit the community inspired the group to support the organization by playing in the tournament.
“We got absolutely destroyed, but we had fun doing it,” Bailey said.
