Innovative Loyola fundraiser a success

By Jim Rueda
Free Press Sports Editor

May 15, 2008 04:15 pm

— Brothers Nate and Zach Hermer came up with the idea on the spur of the moment and, in retrospect, it turned out to be a pretty good one.
The evolution of the plan began more than three years ago when the Loyola baseball booster club began selling hot dogs in the Cub Foods parking lot. The funds accumulated over three years enabled the Crusaders to take their first ever spring trip earlier this year when the program took a school bus to Omaha, Neb.
The two-day trip involved one night’s hotel stay in Omaha, two varsity scrimmages and one junior varsity scrimmage.
“It was fun, we made a lot of good contacts,” Loyola head coach Chris Biehn said Tuesday. “We scrimmaged some pretty good teams in Archbishop Bergen and Omaha Northwest but we got a lot out of it.”
As the team was bussing back from Nebraska, discussion started on how funds could be raised to make the trip a little longer and a little more comfortable. And that’s where the Hermer family comes in.
The idea was to raise enough funds to stay over an extra day and night and play a few more scrimmages.
Riding in a coach bus, instead of a school bus, was also one of the objectives.
“It took us three years selling hot dogs to make this last trip and we didn’t want to have to wait that long — or longer — to do it again,” said Jodie Hermer, the mother of Nate and Zach.
Jodie came up with the idea of the team members doing a walk and getting pledges for each mile covered. Her kids, however, thought that was kind of boring and said why don’t we pick up garbage while we do it?
So, instead of doing some trash talking, the Loyola baseball team decided to do some trash walking on Tuesday afternoon.
“We thought it was a good way to show people that the money wasn’t just going to the baseball team, but it was going for a good cause, too,” said Nate Hermer, a senior on this year’s Crusader squad. “It was a way to help the city and the community, too, and that’s always been part of our mission at Loyola.”
When first presented with the idea, Biehn thought it was a good one.
“It seemed pretty painless and didn’t require a whole lot of detailed organization like some fundraisers do,” he said. “From sixth grade on up, everybody in the program got behind it. We ended up with 36 players and coaches walking in two group so we could cover more area. We would have had more but our JV team had a game that day.”
Between the pledges and the donations of alumni at the team’s annual alumni game, the team raised more than $3,000. It also picked up enough trash to fill half a pick-up bed.
“It went over very well,” Biehn said. “The great thing is, all eight of our seniors participated even though they won’t be here next year to take the trip. That shows the loyalty they have to the program.”
It also shows that, with a little innovation, good things can happen.

Jim Rueda is the Free Press sports editor. To contact him, call 344-6381 or e-mail him at jrueda@mankatofreepress.com.

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