See It: The Community being helped

Hill Country Starling's Volleyball Club.

Finally an alternative to the expensive "Club" volleyball system. I have been fortunate to have parents who could afford to pay the thousands of dollars that it cost to play competitive volleyball. Unfortunately I have seen hundreds of girls less fortunate than myself.

Judging by their raw athletic ability, I have no doubt that many of these girls could have become impact players and possibly earned college scholarships. Unless my program is created hundreds of girls just like me will be denied the opportunity to play volleyball in high school.

Without a healthy outlet, I have seen many of my peers resort to filling their idle time with alcohol, drugs, sex or just sitting around eating and doing nothing.

It is much harder to get in trouble when you spend your time playing a game that you love while under adult supervision.

Our local Junior High Schools have school volleyball. They have two teams for both 7th and 8th grade. Each school has approximately 60 girls.

My research shows that less than 5% of those girls tried out and made a local "Club" team. I also learned that the primary reason for not trying out was due to the cost. The average cost for a traditional club team is over $1,600 with many costing over $3,000 per season.

My plan is bring the "Starlings" program to south Texas. Starlings is a national 5013C program that makes club volleyball possible to rural communities and urban areas that formally lacked such programs for a very affordable price.

Your grant will be used to offset the cost of equipment, such as balls and training aides necessary to properly train our athletes.

I will be hiring High School graduating seniors to be assistant coaches under the supervison of an adult mentor. I plan to build the program around the existing Jr. High Programs. with the goal of fielding two teams per school. To minimize cost we will compete against each other in a Starlings Hill Country League. We will register under USA Volleyball as well. Each team will have the option of enetering a traditional volleyball tournament so that can gauge their performance against many of "Big Money" clubs.

Our season will culminate with a trip to the Starling National Tournament which will take place in San Diego, each June

I will be leaving for college soon after we get back from San Diego and I will leave the program in the hands of my little sister (One of my players) and my dad.

I appreciate your time.