By Emily von Buttlar
The Mira Costa Boys Waterpolo team partners with Chipotle for this year’s annual fundraiser.
Team moms Jen Murphy and Harai Kircher have been working together for the last two weeks to start and organize the annual water polo fundraiser. This year’s fundraiser is a partnership with Chipotle where anyone can purchase anything using the flyer or code displayed on the Costa website. By doing this, 33% of the money that customers pay is given to the boy’s water polo team.
“The fundraisers for the boy’s water polo team are designed to raise funds for the booster club,” Harai said. “The booster club is composed of the parents of the athletes.”
Kircher and other members of the booster club work with MBX to design these fundraisers in hopes to raise money for the booster club. In addition, each family also contributes an annual donation for the booster club which helps cover the expenses. Both the fundraisers and MBX are non profit, so any money they receive goes towards paying for equipment, travel costs, uniforms, a stipend for the coaches, and more.
“We try to raise money in other ways, and one of those ways is to do a fundraiser like you see at Chipotle,” Harai said. “We also do other types of fundraisers like a parent party or other events where there is a theme, and have a good time while you are there but you still have a good time.”
These fundraisers have proven to be important because although the school and parents donate a good amount of money, they have to partially rely on the community to support the team. Fundraising can ensure that teams have enough to pay for the costs in order to keep the school from cutting the team. Volunteers and team members usually run these fundraisers which can support teamwork, creativity and more. Although these fundraisers cannot be held in person due to COVID-19, the booster club still wants to provide a safe way for people to support the team.
“Our booster club has a volunteer, and these are people that volunteer and they all have a different role.” Harai said, “I am the co-president, we have vice presidents, there are people who handle our social media, designing and creating our clothing line and gear, people who will work on marketing, a photographer and people in general who help us make decisions about what is best for the program.’”
Over the past years, the waterpolo team hosted an annual event where they have additionally received between $100 to $500 to raise enough money to repair the Costa water polo scoreboard. They are still working alongside the girls water polo team to earn money for the school to fix the scoreboard.
“In general we pay a stipend for the coaches, we also help to buy equipment, travel, the entrance fees for tournaments,” Harai said. “We will also pick up the tab for the students that are in need for gear like their speedo.”
This year’s fundraiser will be at Chipotle at 1439 Pacific Coast Highway in Hermosa beach on Nov. 4th from 4pm to 8pm. Students and parents can use the code 3WL97AP for online orders or show the cashier a flyer to donate 33% of their order to the water polo team.
“These are very generous fundraisers, the organization that allows us to do the fundraiser is giving us back anywhere from 30% to 50% of the revenue that night.” Harai said, “Anybody who mentions water polo will be contributing to our program.”
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