(Spirit Lake)– Get Up and Bowl, a fundraiser for the Iowa Great Lakes Special Olympic Athletes, is in its 14th year. Organizer Nancy Vierkant says an event like this takes a lot of work from dedicated volunteers to pull off every year but she says the hard work pays off…
“The day of the event when we see all the fun everyone is having it makes it all worth it. And then after that we get to see the smiles and the joy on all those athletes faces that they wouldn’t have that. This is something that we do as a group as a fundraiser because we don’t want our Special Olympics athletes to miss out on anything. We don’t charge them to do anything because of this fundraiser pays for all of those things for them.”
Vierkant says the event started with bowling but the Silent Auction has become an important part of the fundraiser…
“Then we had this silent auction and we figured out that while we had all these businesses that were so supportive of us that wanted to donate gifts and services and baskets and products that we could have as a silent auction that all of the sudden we were making so much on our silent auction that we were like wow what a great blend of two things people love to do bowl and silent auctions and so yea the fundraiser has really taken off and so its fun to see.”
Get Up and Bowl takes place on April 27th at Juniper Lanes. Entry fee is $200 per team and they would like teams to sign up by April 23rd. Registration includes bowling, shoes and one pizza for each team.
Hear the complete interview with Nancy Vierkant by clicking here:
