Hoo Crew hosted their first philanthropy event, Hoos Together, Sunday. Hoos Together was a field day for student, student-athletes, coaches and Charlottesville Special Olympics athletes celebrating a shared love for sports with games, food and performances. All proceeds were donated to the Special Olympics.
Founded and run by students, Hoo Crew is the official student section for the University athletics events. Hoo Crew’s mission is to bring the community together through sports.
“Hoo Crew is the official student fan group at the University,” Faby Chaillo, a fourth-year Commerce student and Hoo Crew’s special events co-chair, said. “Our role at the University is to bring the community together through sports.”
Chaillo said Hoo Crew wanted to build on momentum from other events to further their mission.
“People are so passionate about sports, and our role is to make people even more hype, to get them excited, to get them out to games,” she said. “We wanted to take it a step further.”
Chaillo worked with fellow co-chair for special events, third-year College student Morgan Crawford, to create Hoos Together.
“Together we came up with the idea for this event, and really from scratch started creating the first philanthropy for Hoo Crew to have,” Chaillo said.
Chaillo said she and Crawford were motivated to host an event that would bring different parts of the community together.
“We think that there is a divide in the University, between the varsity athletes and the rest of the students, and it shouldn’t be that way. They’re just students like we are,” Chaillo said. “We wanted to use this event to integrate the Virginia athletes, the official varsity players, with the student body. Special Olympics was a good cause to bring them together for.”
Around 300 people came out to the event, including students, coaches, student-athletes, members of Charlottesville Special Olympics and parents of Special Olympics athletes.
Crawford said she enjoyed spending time with the participants and spectators.
“The past few hours we’ve really just been spending time with Special Olympics athletes, and it’s really just been fun,” Crawford said. “My favorite part was seeing them interact with the other athletes when they were getting pied in the face. It was great to see the athletic communities together.”
Jake Gore, vice president of Hoo Crew and a fourth-year Commerce student, also said he was pleased with how the event turned out.
“Everyone seemed to mix well together, and we got to play a bunch of sports games — everyone seemed to bond over that,” Gore said. “I don’t know exactly what my expectations were, but they were completely exceeded.”
Gore credited the success of Hoos Together with the teamwork many put into the organization process.
“We could not have done this without the rest of the Hoo Crew committee, the sub-committee for philanthropy — they were a huge help, we could not have done it without them,” Gore said. “We also couldn’t have done it without all the U.Va. student athletic coaches, as well as all the U.Va. student athletes and Special Olympics, of course, because the event was for them.”
Due to the success of this year’s event, Hoo Crew hopes to continue to host Hoos Together in the following years.
“We’re trying to make it an annual event,” Chaillo said. “We have it already planned with Special Olympics for next year.”
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