Up ‘til Dawn kicks cancer with soccer camp for kids

– Erin L Givens

The writer is a student in Comm 240 News Reporting.

Up ‘til Dawn, a campus organization that raises money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, partnered with a Leadership 310 group and the Hays Recreation Center to put on a soccer camp for youth aged 5-14 on Saturday, March 8.

The Cancer Kickers soccer camp was held from 1-3 p.m. at the Soccer Stadium, with registration starting at 12:30 p.m. The $20 registration included a T-shirt.

Korby Boswell, is part of the LDRS 310 group that helped plan the event and executive director of Up ‘til Dawn on campus.

This is the third year Up ‘til Dawn has hosted the soccer camp, Bowell said. Forty-four kids pre-registered, and Boswell said he hoped more would show up on Saturday. Last year the event had 35 participants.

“We use this as an awareness campaign for the parents, as well as the kids, so we can let them know here is what we are doing, and here is why we are here. We have raised this amount of money for St. Jude, which runs completely on donations, so that is what your money is going for. I think a lot of people area pretty receptive to that too,” Boswell said.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, located in Memphis, Tenn., is the world’s leading research institution on cancers found in children. It shares its results with medical facilities around the world. The hospital is funded entirely through donations.

The LDRS 310 group had only 28 days to organize and plan the event.

“From the outside looking in, you’re like, ‘Oh you know it’s a soccer camp. What can it entail?’ But you have to make a registration form, but that comes after finding a location, setting a date and setting a time…We printed over 2,000 flyers and distributed those to every school in Hays as well as Victoria and Ellis,” Boswell said.

Although the group did not have a fundraising goal in mind, the community has helped cover the cost of the event with sponsorship and donations, Boswell said, adding most of the money from registration will go straight to St. Jude.

The FHSU soccer teams and coaches ran the camp. The coaches and players ran drills and worked on techniques with the kids. The Recreation Commission provided the soccer balls and helped set a date for the event.

Emily Goad is production chair for Up ‘til Dawn and was in the LDRS 310 group that helped plan the event last year.

“It costs St. Jude $1.8 million a day to stay open, and they get that money through donations alone. St. Jude covers the cost of everything, so families don’t have to pay anything,” Goad said.

Up ‘til Dawn is a nationwide collegiate partnership with the hospital.

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