Binghamton University’s club field hockey team will be holding a fundraiser tournament Saturday, on national LIVESTRONG day, to raise money for the LIVESTRONG organization.
BU’s team decided to donate to LIVESTRONG after the team at Regis College held a similar fundraiser on Oct. 2, 2009. One of the field hockey members at Regis started their LIVESTRONG event after her friend passed away from leukemia. LIVESTRONG serves as an online support center for cancer survivors and those still struggling to overcome it.
‘We got the idea [for the event] from similar fundraisers held at Regis College and University of Buffalo, and decided we wanted to do something like them at Binghamton,’ said Ariel Sena, co-captain of the club field hockey team. ‘We work really hard as a team, practice hard and we wanted to do something to reach out to the community.’
The four teams participating in the tournament will be paying an entry fee of $200 per team to play and all of the proceeds from that will be donated to the LIVESTRONG Foundation. Admission to the tournament is free for spectators, but attendees are encouraged to donate to the foundation. The club field hockey team will be selling shirts and concessions at the event, and all the money raised will be donated.
According to Meghan Lacovara, co-president of the team, members of the club field hockey team hope that they will be able to get the word out so that more clubs can be involved next year and perhaps they can have a campus-wide event to raise money.
‘This is the first year and we are just starting to put our toes in the water,’ Lacovara said. ‘We are taking baby steps and hoping to make an impact, and then we will try to expand next year now that we have an idea of how it works.’
The tournament will be a round-robin style event, with each team playing at least twice, some playing three times. The games are an hour long, and every team will play each other, with the exception of one team.
Club teams from Messiah College, Villanova University, Ithaca College and Sacred Heart University will be attending the tournament. In order to qualify for national competitions, each field hockey team needs to play a specific number of games, and the games played at BU’s tournament will count toward that number.
Students unable to make it to the tournament can show their support in other ways. The team will be holding bake sales during the week to collect money and will also have memory cards for sale which students can purchase and inscribe a message to a loved one. The cards will then be used to spell out ‘LIVESTRONG’ on a banner displayed during the tournament.
LIVESTRONG is a part of the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Armstrong founded the organization after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Since the founding of LIVESTRONG, $325 million has been raised ‘ 81 percent of which went to support programs and services for survivors.
Information on helping with the event as a volunteer can be obtained through e-mail at buclubfieldhockey@gmail.com.
The tournament will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday on the track fields behind the East Gym.