Sports teams and programs use Snap-Raise, an online fundraising program, to raise money for new equipment and other necessities adamant to the program’s success.

“I like how it’s simple, there’s nothing complicated about it,” band member Madison Weaver said. “You get emails, then you give them to people and they tell you what to do with the emails. Then after that you get to watch the money grow and it’s really exciting seeing how it goes.”

Students make a list of friends and family members emails, and a Snap-Raise representative puts them into the fundraiser. A total of three emails over a period of time are sent to those listed, asking for donations to the particular cause.

“It’s really mobile friendly, and it’s kind of like we just accumulate a bunch of emails and we send them out to people and they donate to us,” tennis player Neha Madhira said. “I do prefer snap raise over other fundraisers because for me personally, I have a lot of family that doesn’t live around here, so it’s easier for me to get access to them instead of sending them something through the mail.”

Tennis, cross-country, volleyball, and band have recently used Snap-Raise, and the golf team plans to use it again later in the fall.

“It was so successful last year, and with the purchase of the simulator, now we need a putting green, and to fully turf the room,” golf coach Elizabeth Hamilton said. “You know if we’re as successful as we were last year we should be able to accomplish that with this round.”

Last year the golf team was able to raise money to buy a golf simulator, which will aid the young golfers during the cold, winter months when they cannot practice outside.

“It benefits the team by raising money just for different equipment,” golfer Emily Nystrom said. “For the golf team especially, we’re using now golf simulators, which is going to benefit us a lot for wintertime.”

The band also used Snap-Raise to raise money for more equipment, scholarships, and to pay support staff.

“We only do this one fundraiser a year, and we try to make as much as we can, and that money goes to a variety of things,” band director John Alstrin said. “So annually the band boosters give out $10,000 or more in college scholarships, so we have to make that money somehow. In addition to that we pay about 15 staff members, so we lower our student to teacher ratio by bringing in support staff.”

This fundraiser is beneficial to not only the band, but color guard also reaps the rewards of the success of Snap-Raise.

“It benefits us because with the money we get we’re able to spend it on new color guard flags, new equipment, new instruments, scholarships at the end of the year; it just really benefits everyone whether you’re guard or a band member,” Weaver said. “So the money is going to go towards a lot of more marching equipment, such as flags, new marching horns, and it will go to making our field a little bit better and uniforms and props.”

The money rose by Snap-Raise aids sports teams and programs, and encourages participation among students and their friends and family.

“I like that it’s really easy to use, and that it doesn’t take very long to get too many donations. It’s raised a lot of money really quickly,” Madhira said.