There are always ways to help out in the community. The Pre-Athletic Training Club is no exception of this. Despite it being the club’s first year of existence, they not only serve their own club members at Winona State University well but also the Winona community.
President of the club and second-year student Rose Cases helped organize an event to donate food to the Winona Volunteer Services food shelf at the end of March.
Meeting once a month, the Pre-Athletic Training Club describes their first year as a club as a great opportunity to not only have fun but to also do things in the Pre-Athletic Training major such as learning how to tape an ankle.
“The club started when Haley [Mulberry], my co-president and I were wanting a place where we could ask questions and get an in-depth look at how the athletic training program works at WSU,” Cases said. “We wanted to create a place where undergraduate students could learn more about their potential future profession.”
With the theme of March Madness, the club decorated two white baskets as basketball hoops, one for students and one for the professors in the HERS department. Creating a competition between students and professors, the club didn’t know that during the two weeks that they collected donations two baskets weren’t enough to hold all the donations.
“The idea behind this event was to get our club out there as well as helping out the local Winona community,” Cases said. “The event went really well. So many students and professors participated in bringing in canned foods, baking mixes and instant mashed potatoes…We will definitely be doing this again next year and hopefully many years to come.”
The HERS department students and professors donated a total of 566 items to the Winona Volunteers Services food shelf. With each food item equaling different points, the more needed items like baking mixes were three points, instant potatoes were two points and anything else like canned food items were 1 point. The winners of this event were not only the Winona community but also the students winning against the professors with a score of 577 points versus the professors’ score of 517 points.
“This event was to bring a sense of community around the HERS department and allow us to do something good in the Winona community,” Co-president Mulberry said. “We donated to Winona Volunteer Services and they made the process very easy. My overall thoughts is that this event was a great friendly competition for a great cause.”
