No matter how cold the first week back at Winona State University was, the Wenonah Players were ready to fundraise. The Wenonah Players is the theatre club that has become a place for students of various degrees to share their talent. Over January 10th-12th, the Wenonah Players hosted a pop-up thrift shop to fundraise for the club.
The club was fundraising to send a small group of students to the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KC/ACTF) in Des Moines, Iowa. This academic theatre festival is important for students who are theatre majors, or those who are interested in theatre due to the festival’s ability to help students hone their talents.
Jensen Drake, a third-year majoring in public relations, is the vice president of the Wenonah Players. Drake described the importance of this event.
“This five daylong conference includes opportunities to participate in auditions, intensives, watch theatrical shows and meet people within the theatre industry. There is also the opportunity for students to book professional jobs,” Drake said. “Our pop-up shop raised money to help fund these students on the trip as well as giving leftover funds to the players’ account.”
This fundraiser was put on not only to help the Wenonah Players students, but also to help the students of WSU and the community. With the high prices of necessities, saving money is more important now than ever, especially for college students.
Sanorah Goldoff, a fourth-year student double majoring in theatre and special education teaching is the president of the Wenonah Players club at WSU.
“Shopping for clothes can be expensive nowadays, especially for students who have to worry about tuition, rent, and groceries. This is a great opportunity for students to shop for affordable clothes and help us raise money for our trip all at once,” Goldoff said.
Along with collecting clothes from students, faculty, and parents, many of the Wenonah Players donated bags of their own clothes in order to put on this pop-up thrift shop. Over the two days of running the pop-up thrift shop, members of the Wenonah Players got to meet new people from around campus and help make a difference.
Kailey Doeseckle, a third-year student majoring in criminal justice: corrections and justice services has been a member of the Wenonah players since her first year of college.
“I think that my favorite part of the pop-up shop was being able to meet people! Lots of different people came by those couple of days, and chatting with them was always fun. I also just liked being able to share my clothes with people who use them,” Doeseckle said.
The pop-up fundraiser was cut off a day earlier than planned due to inclement weather. Instead of the pop-up shop running for three days it only ran for two, however no matter the amount of time it was intended to run for versus the time it did, the event did help the Wenonah players reach their goal of sending some students to the KC/ACTF.
The Wenonah Players event coordinator, a fourth-year accounting major Eli Anderson is one of the people who made the shop happen.
“We were very excited to do this fundraiser and we were very happy to send 7 of our players to ACTF. This was a huge success for us, and it was very fun to put on and run,” Anderson said.
While the event didn’t get its full run due to the weather, there are plans to do it again later in the spring to make up for it. A lot of people in the Wenonah Players helped to make this pop-up thrift shop happen and they have intentions to announce new dates to make up for lost time.
