In a pair of Green Phone calls earlier this month, two callers
posed questions about women
’s athletics at Gavilan College. Gavilan spokeswoman Jan
Berenstein-Chargin weighed in on the issue from the college’s point
of view. One caller asked why the new women’s volleyball program
had received a grant before the program had even been approved by
the school board.
In a pair of Green Phone calls earlier this month, two callers posed questions about women’s athletics at Gavilan College. Gavilan spokeswoman Jan Berenstein-Chargin weighed in on the issue from the college’s point of view. One caller asked why the new women’s volleyball program had received a grant before the program had even been approved by the school board.
“In order to get the volleyball team to exist, we see what kind of community funding is out there,” Berenstein-Chargin said. “This is then presented to the board, and if the board rejects the program, the money would be returned to the donors.”
Another caller asked why, for the past few weeks, the Gavilan athletic department has not been allowing the softball team to use its fundraising money.
According to Berenstein-Chargin, there were some attempts by the softball team to go around district purchasing procedures to use the funds, so the department had to take tighter control.
“Competitive sports teams are allowed to conduct raffles and customarily, teams are limited to spending the amount of funds they raise in one season,” Berenstein-Chargin said. “This season, the team generated $3,058 and had already spent $3,248.”
Berenstein-Chargin added that the team also requested an additional $2,000 to pay for an end-of-season event.
“That would have completely exhausted the surplus for next season,” she said.
On average, teams spend about $600 for an end-of-season event. The exception, Berenstein-Chargin said, is football, which gets $1,600 dollars because it has 60 members, significantly more than other sports.
The same Green Phone caller also wanted to know if the baseball team had been allowed to use its fundraising money.
“The baseball team was not in a similar situation of spending more than they brought in, nor asked for such a large amount for end of year event,” Berenstein–Chargin said. “We’re taking care to make sure that the resources are being used to benefit all students, past, present and next year.”
