 "Photo: Erin Drew")
After three weeks of planning, four business students held a fundraiser for a child with a serious illness, and their efforts were recognized at last Wednesday’s charity pingpong tournament at the Ferrell Commons auditorium.
Nicknamed “Team Sharp,” the four students – juniors Lauren Basye, Mitch Froelich, Chris Fisher and Katie Neill – planned the tournament for their cornerstone class, a required upper-division business course that Basye likened to NBC’s The Apprentice.
“It’s teaching you business skills and how to apply them in the real world,” Basye said.
The tournament kicked off at 1 p.m. on Wednesday with free food provided by Chipotle, Lazy Moon and Jimmy John’s to a small audience that gathered to watch the 36 participants compete.
The mood was casual and light-hearted. A number of participants played barefoot and showed off elaborate serves.
After about 2 1/2 hours of gameplay, senior David Llona, vice president of the UCF table tennis team, took the grand prize: a $50 Lazy Moon gift certificate and Volcom apparel.
“It was great,” Llona said. “I had a lot of fun. I came out with a good prize and had a great time.”
All proceeds from the tournament went to Team Sharp’s non-profit organization of choice: New Hope for Kids, a Central Florida wish-granting program. Through the program, they met and pledged to fulfill the wish of a 13-year-old named Joshua, who has Type 1 diabetes.
While New Hope for Kids had granted Joshua’s first wish for a laptop, Team Sharp decided to reimburse them for the cost and raise funds to grant Joshua’s second wish.
“Because of his condition, he can’t join the Army … so we really want to throw him a celebration party at Hard Knocks because it has that combat feeling, and it’s something he can do,” Basye said.
Froelich, the designated team leader, came up with the idea for the tournament while playing table tennis at Boba Tease, a restaurant at the UCF Arena.
“We wanted to be original,” Froelich said. “We wanted to catch the eye of potential donors.”
Though the group managed to gain six partnerships and the support of UCF’s table tennis team, they owed perhaps their biggest thanks to the clothing company Volcom, who sponsored the event.
Froelich, a featured artist on Volcom’s Web site, sought the attention of its charity division, the Volcom Gives Back Series, and Neill drafted an 15-page proposal.
Volcom not only agreed to match up to $400 of their proceeds, but it also donated roughly $600 worth of merchandise to hand out as prizes and allowed the students to use its logo on their advertisements.
But Team Sharp’s road to success wasn’t always a smooth ride. At one point, they had to start turning down new participants because the brackets were full.
“We didn’t want to have to turn down people because that’s $20 we were turning down for New Hope for Kids,” Basye said.
So they applied their business acumen and created a separate, girls-only bracket to free up space. They managed to raise an extra $80.
“My friend Katie was putting it on and said it was for charity,” junior Rachel Valencia said. “I knew it was for a great cause, so why not play?”
Team Sharp raised $408 for Joshua and New Hope for Kids, which brought the grand total to $816 after to Volcom’s pledge.
“We had a really good turnout, so we’re hoping to give Joshua his wish,” Fisher said.
After the tournament, Neill found herself tired but grateful.
“This pingpong tournament was ridiculously hard to put on, and I’m so relieved that it’s over and that it went well,” she said.
The students agreed that their hard work not only paid off, but that the cornerstone course has helped to prepare them for business world.
“I’m so glad it was in my first semester in the College of Business because I feel like I know how to network and talk to business professionals now,” Basye said.
“How to be gracious, how to ask for help and money — that is something that can be really uncomfortable, so now I have another three or four semesters to work on it.”
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