With over 150 Uni High students as club leaders and over 60 registered clubs, you can find just about anything to get involved in. These clubs’ activities range from practicing dance routines to organizing service trips that span more than 400 miles from the school. For certain clubs, competitions are integral to the idea of the club’s existence.
Many clubs focus on fundraising for other non-profits or organizations locally and worldwide; some clubs, for their projects, must fundraise for their own or charge students for their involvement. With the $200 price tag for all IHSA sports, from basketball to scholastic bowl, students are putting the money down.
Then we come to a small number of clubs, those that are not regulated within IHSA, and more so exist for the competitive environment for an extracurricular activity. I spoke to leaders of Uni’s Mock Trial club who have struggled to fund their competitions.
Mock Trial leaders Jemina Feng and Mariam Mostafa spoke about their challenges in funding and their growth into a competitive Mock Trial team. Feng explains how, due to previous expectations for grants, the guidelines for what grants fund for Uni have now been changed.
Mostafa added that they have been taking the funding challenges day by day. Mock Trial has evolved into something bigger, and in the words of both leaders, “competitive”. With this competitiveness comes a hefty cost.
Mock Trial is no cheap sport particularly as the involvement of the team shifts to attending scrimmages against other schools across the state. For each scrimmage, there is a registration fee ranging from $50-$200. There are also travel costs for around fifteen members, with charter buses that start $700 according to Mostafa. However, these fees would increase if the team wanted to travel to Chicago or farther.
Mostafa and Feng explained that they have looked at implementing fees of $100 for each competing member. Mostafa furthers this by explaining how she understands the expense but however at the competitive level that has just become the expectation in order to participate.
Both are working with administration, possibly to find an alumni donor and using previous funds raised by the club.
Jennifer Earls, Uni High’s Operation Coordinator discussed “reclassifying” clubs in order to provide resources to support their competitions. Earls explains how it will be similar to Registered Student Organizations at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. With clubs listing on their club confirmation forms if they believe they qualify for these resources. Earls and Robert Fitzgerald, Director and Principal at Uni, will work with these clubs in order to find them support in fundraising and discussing how much is needed for the yearly expenses.
“They are on a case-by-case basis,” explains Earls.
Currently, $200 sits in a club funding account in Uni’s budget.
Scholastic bowl has been another club that has found challenges in fundraising with a few food sales being their source of funds for travel expenses. Each member pays a $200 fee as Scholastic Bowl falls under IHSA regulations.
“The decision for the athletic department to fund our program came from the fact that the program has gone over budget multiple times in its history, even before I became coach,” Kaila Simpson, sponsor for scholastic bowl, writes.