Women's Cross Country, Women's Golf To Take Part In Community Service Competition

Bowling Green, Ohio - For the past several months, the student athletes at Bowling Green State University have been participating in the NCAA® Team Works™ Challenge. This community service challenge is run by the NCAA and Helper Helper, a student-athlete led community engagement platform. The Women's Cross Country Team and Women's Golf team at BGSU have both earned spots in the "March Madness" style competition bracket that puts 64 DI, DII, and DIII teams head to head to see which team can have the greatest impact in their community.

Since the beginning of this year, the Women's Golf team has participated for 216 hours of community service. In January everyone on their team participated in National Women and Girls In Sport Day.

During that same period, players on the Women's Cross Country team each did 23 hours of service spread across 16 events. Some of these events included supporting a Special Olympics bowling event. Coach Lou Snelling said the event was created seven years ago just after he arrived at Bowling Green. Several of the women on the team at that time came back from helping out at a different Special Olympics event in the area and wanted to host our own. The rest is history, they have been fortunate to learn what it means to compete and be brave with over 120 Special Olympic athletes each year. It's been so meaningful to build those relationships.

They will go head to head against Georgian Court Women's Basketball in the second round of the Community Service Team Challenge. A runner on the Cross Country team, Elena Lancioni, mentioned that "being able to be a top 64 team in the country for community service hours shows that as a team we do so much more. Yes, we compete and try to chase after goals and dreams, but volunteering adds another aspect to our lives. It humbles us and helps us to appreciate and learn more about the community we are competing in. We are able to give back and make connections, which is a lesson that is so valuable to our growth as adults and beyond athletics."

Community service is something the Bowling Green State University student-athletes enjoy doing. Having the opportunity to engage in the community is a team experience that these students remember forever. This challenge is designed to highlight those teams and student-athletes that go out of their way to make a positive impact in the lives of others.

The teams that move on will face off against another top performing team, with the winner of each week determined by the number of volunteer hours logged on the Helper Helper platform and their team's percent participation. Winners for the NCAA® Team Works™ Challenge will be announced at the conclusion of the competition, which ends March 31.

About Helper Helper
Helper Helper was founded by former University of Michigan basketball player Krista Clement to simplify the volunteer process for students and help them create a lasting impact within their communities and themselves.

Helper Helper works with over 350 colleges and universities, including a partnership with all of NCAA Division II. For more information on Helper Helper, visit www.HelperHelper.com or follow them on Twitter @HelperHelperApp.

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