Students from a variety of academic backgrounds teamed up this semester to raise $1,700 for a cause benefitting the local community.
The money was raised by sports administration and hospitality event management classes that hosted a basketball tournament and a dinner during the weekend.
More than 50 people played in Saturday's Hoops 4 Harvest three-on-three basketball tournament to raise money for the Harvest Soup Kitchen in Muncie.
Junior sports administration major Anthony Roach played on the wining team, the Mollsters. The team was named in honor of Molly Myers, director of marketing and promotions of Ball State University's athletics department.
Roach said that "it's always fun to play some basketball," and that this was his first year participating in the annual charity event. He might be in the class next year, he said.
Chad Deweese, junior sports administration major and member of the Mollsters, said his team decided to compete for fun, but the charity aspects gave it more meaning.
"It makes it better that we're playing for a cause and not just playing for nothing," he said.
The three finalists were Team Rubbers-on, The Legend and the Mollsters. Rubbers-on won against The Legend, but lost to the undefeated, pink shirt-wearing Mollsters, 11-8.
Andrew Zimmer came from Hobart, Ind., to participate in Saturday's tournament. His team, The Legend, didn't win, but he was glad he helped donate to charity, he said.
"I heard about it from a friend," Zimmer said. "I think it was tons of fun."
A sports administration major and student in the event management class that helped organize the tournament, junior Emily Butler said she was pleased with the turnout. She was in the public relations group in her class, working to get ads on radio and TV stations. Planning the event was hard work, but "really worth it," Butler said.
James Connor, a member of the operations group in the event management class, said the only problem was the confusion with starting the bracket. Problems like that must be planned for, he said, as advice to future event management students.
"Start early, buy as much time as you can," Connor said. "We had some nosebleeds, and a few falls ... always have a contingency plan."
Following the basketball tournament, FCSFN 477, an advanced event management class, hosted a fundraising dinner at the Allegre Dining Room in the Applied Technology building. The dinner was a collaboration between the hospitality class and a catering class.
The catering students had help from Lucas Miller, manager of menu development and the test kitchen at Ball State. He said the students had everything set-up well, and that he was just there to "make sure there's no blood and everyone still has their fingers afterward."
About 60 guests attended the dinner and were treated to live music by keyboard player Albert Gonzales and a greeting by Pierce and Altman.
The menu included salmon cucumber rolls, winter vegetable bisque, roasted breast of duck with Port wine cherry gastrique and heirloom pumpkin soufflé with lemony green beans. For dessert, there was cranberry upside-down cake and crème anglaise with grand marnier.
Senior hospitality and food management major Taylor Karandos was the chairwoman for the dinner. She said she was impressed with the design team's work in the dining area and was pleased with the way things worked out.
Lois Altman, associate professor of hospitality and food management, taught the class that organized the dinner. She said the students did a great job, especially because this is the first year this has been done.
"Instead of just book learning, we figured we'd just let them do the real thing," Altman said.
Ruby Smith, instructor of the catering class, was satisfied with the way the event turned out. The goal was to allow students to have a learning experience to "prepare them for the real world," Smith said
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