In case you haven’t heard, girls’ volleyball and girls’ basketball have been hard at work fundraising for a new team room, and it’s finally paid off! Announced on January 12, 2024, the new girls’ volleyball coach, Natalia Simmons, decided that the girls sports needed a team room.
A team room is used for many different things such as getting ready for games and practices, watching game day film, and having a place to hangout and bond with your teammates. Mrs. Simmons says, “It’s good for the culture of girls sports, camaraderie, and a place to be together.”
The goal was to raise around $30,000 before the season started. When asked how she intended to raise the money, Simmons said, “I knew it was a big goal so I had to come up with a variety of different things to meet it.” With that in mind, coach Simmons go to work. Girls’ volleyball did a variety of fundraisers such as pizza sales, donuts and muffins sales, and a serve-a-thon. She also came up with a few different restaurant fundraisers such as Canes, Menchies, and Chipotle; raising $15,000 in just two months. Mrs. Simmons wanted us to include a special shout out to Maya Wynn’s father for building the team room and saving girls sports a lot of money.
Though the girls’ team room was the brainchild of coach Simmons, the space was also going to be used by girls’ basketball who needed to raise the remaining $15,000 to reach their goal. Since girls’ basketball didn’t have a coach to organize everything, Mr. Nagatsuka courageously stepped in and took control. We had the pleasure of interviewing him, and he told us how Mrs. Simmons reached out, “Mrs. Simmons told me I had until the end of the year and I panicked!” However with the help of the team, especially his daughter Allyson Nagatsuka, the girls’ basketball team was able to set up ice cream sales, restaurant fundraisers, a shoot-a-thon, and a car wash. Girls’ basketball hasn’t been able to reach the goal yet but so far they have raised $13,000. We talked to Allyson Nagatsuka about how she felt and she said, “It’s a demonstration of the hard work that the girls’ basketball and girls’ volleyball put in to show that we deserve a team room.”
Mr. Nagatsuka wanted to give a special thanks to the Athletic Directors for giving us this opportunity. Both teams are very proud of their work and girls’ volleyball captain Emme Dingilian says that the necessary team room will, “really help the team atmosphere, and it will really help us feel more united as a group.”
Congratulations ladies. It looks fantastic! This is really great to hear. Thank you for working hard, raising those funds to make our school better!