Apollo High School Swim and Dive Team Fundraiser

For the Apollo High School Swim and Dive team, fundraising goes beyond helping just their team.

“At the start of the swim season, I told my team about the goals I have for this season. One of my five goals was to do community service as a team, and not only that but set a goal for how many service hours I want our team to complete together,” head coach Matt Groat tells us.

Apollo High School’s swim and dive team is made up of 45-55 students, both boys and girls from grades 9-12. Some of these students don’t have a background in swimming, so Groat has committed to teaching them from square one.

From the start of his coaching career five years ago, Groat has been wanting to find more ways to get involved beyond just swim and dive. Before COVID hit, his team had taken a trip to Feed My Starving Children in Mesa, Arizona. They hand-packed meals of rice, soy, dried vegetables and a nutritionally complete blend of vitamins and minerals into bags, which are sealed and then shipped to partners working to reach children in need around the world. His students loved it.

Due to COVID, they weren’t able to participate in anything last season, which made this season extra special after it opened back up this year. Groat thought of different goals he wanted his team to accomplish throughout the year, and one of them included adding 250 hours of community service in order to encourage his team to be leaders not only in their school but also in their community.

“We have done two community service events so far this season. One was adopting a street near a middle school that feeds into our high school. The second was going to Feed My Starving Children and packing food for hungry kids in other countries. We have two more trips to FMSC coming up this month and next, and will be back to street cleanup in December,” Groat says. 

To help pay for transportation to and from their service events, Apollo High School’s Swim and Dive team hosted a fundraiser with Chipotle.

“Thank you so much for your willingness to partner with Apollo Swim and helping me, their coach, raise them to care about others and not only themselves,” Groat says.

If your high school’s swim and dive team is looking to host a fundraiser with Chipotle, apply on our website here.