Seneca’s team raised $500 for Kingwood to help get them through their season and to aid their recovery.
Athletics are meant to be competitive, but certain tragedies in the human experience transcend competitiveness on the field. In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Seneca High School’s Girls’ Cross Country team, part of the Lenape Regional High School District, chose to change part of the purpose behind a car wash fundraiser. Initially meant to help fund a trip to the Great American Cross Country Festival in North Carolina, the team chose to repurpose half of the funds raised to support Kingwood High School’s Girls’ Cross Country team. Kingwood High School (Kingwood, TX) was badly damaged by Hurricane Harvey, and the school lost almost everything in the aftermath. As a result, the students of Kingwood High School are currently attending another school in their district.
Seneca High School’s Girls’ Cross Country coach Karen O’Neil chose Kingwood after contacting Will Grundy, a person who runs the cross country website Texas Milesplit. Will Grundy had already written an article about Kingwood and recommend Kingwood as the recipient of the donation. Seneca’s team raised $500 for Kingwood to help get them through their season and to aid their recovery.
When asked about why Seneca High School’s Girls’ Cross Country team chose to help, head coach Karen O’Neil stated, “Hurricane Harvey hit Texas just as our preseason was getting underway this cross country season. The girls on the Seneca Cross Country team know how hard the girls on the Kingwood High School team must have worked this summer to prepare for their season, and how devastating it would be to have something like this happen. Athletics can play an important role in getting back to normal after a disaster like this, and we wanted to do something to help them return to normalcy just a little bit quicker. Even though it’s not enough to replace everything that they lost, hopefully it can help a few girls on the team to replace their shoes, uniforms, or whatever they need most right now.”
Seneca student-athletes and co-captains Carley Tool and Sydny Warner both agreed that something needed to be done. When asked why the team decided to help, senior Carley Tool said, “Cross country is a family, and any chance we get to help each other out, we will gladly take it.” Senior Sydny Warner added, “We see how unfair life can be, and we wanted to help a team that had the same passion as ours.”
