Though Lynbrook athletes make use of their frequent practices and bonding sessions to create a more tight-knit community, fundraising is another crucial aspect that helps bring the team together while financing their sport. To effectively raise money, Lynbrook’s Valkyries, wrestling and basketball have been straying away from generic fundraising methods, creating new ways to raise money.

The Spring and Winter Shows are the Valkyries main sources of funds, with the team selling tickets for $7 and raffle tickets for an additional dollar. The money raised is used to fund upcoming competitions, trips and transportation.

In addition, the Valkyries have been selling their popular baked potatoes at Lynbrook home football games every Friday. This unique method of fundraising takes many hours to plan, as it requires a monthly parent meeting to delegate which team members will bake the potatoes, and determine the fundraising goal for each month and what the earned funds will be used for.

Selling the baked potatoes at the football games is also an opportunity for the Valkyries to bond with their teammates.

“At football games, when we’re waiting for customers to arrive, we have time to talk and not stress about our dances,” said freshman Megan Hong. “We can just get to know each other better and become closer.”

This team spirit carries over into Lynbrook’s wrestling team as well, where team members compete with each other to sell caramel apples, chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate almond bark and fudge to the Lynbrook community. The wrestlers aim to sell either 20 food items or $200 worth of food. They work with a company called the Chocolate Dipper that specializes in fundraising throughout California.

“Even though we aren’t together when selling concessions or apples and pretzels, there is a lot of competition when fundraising,” said senior Lucas Hong. “The top three wrestlers that sold the most also received cash prizes.”

Wrestling also hosts several girls, JV and Varsity tournaments throughout the year; most of the profits from tournaments come from selling concessions donated by the wrestling families, admission costs, as well as from the fees that wrestling teams from other schools pay to enter their athletes into the tournaments.

In previous years, the team used several different fundraising methods, including selling tamales and cookie dough. Fundraising through the Chocolate Dipper for the past two years, however, has been the most successful, as the products from the Chocolate Dipper are less perishable and generate greater profit than the cookies and tamales.

The funds raised by the team from hosting tournaments and selling Chocolate Dipper products are used to send the wrestlers to ten tournaments throughout the season. The team aims to raise over ten thousand dollars a season, as each of the ten tournaments the team attends cost a thousand dollars in registration and transportation fees.

The Lynbrook boys’ basketball team has also been experimenting with new fundraising methods. This year, they started with two new ideas: selling basketball t-shirts and participating in the 25-by-25 challenge. The 25-by-25 challenge involves attempting 25 shots from 25 different spots on the court. Spectators can donate flat donations, a single sum of money or choose to donate a certain amount for every shot a player makes.

By designing and selling basketball t-shirts for $20 to teachers and students, the team has been aiming to raise $1000. The funds would then go toward new equipment, gear and practice jerseys for JV.  

“I designed the t-shirts with my friends because we wanted something fans could wear to our Friday night games,” said senior and team captain Joseph Liow. “We had to work together, and we ended up bonding a lot because we had to sell and design [the t-shirts] as quickly as possible.”

From selling homemade baked potatoes to working with the Chocolate Dipper to creating the 25-by-25 challenge, Lynbrook sports teams view fundraising as an opportunity to be creative, all while effectively raising money for their teams.