If you ever need to find some IU volleyball players on a Friday when the team isn’t traveling, look no further than the classroom — the elementary school classroom, that is.
Every Friday of a home match, members of the team volunteer to read to and visit with Bloomington children.
The Hoosiers meet and entertain students at Templeton Elementary, Highland Park Elementary, Arlington Heights Elementary and Fairview Elementary.
“It’s huge,” IU Coach Sherry Dunbar-Kruzan said, referring to the team’s community outreach program. “It’s been a big mainstay of our program since I took over 10 years ago. It’s the community I grew up in, and I feel that it’s very important because sports give you a platform to do really positive things. We learn from it as much as the community does.”
The effects of these interactions reach far beyond the court.
According to Dunbar-Kruzan, one of the most meaningful experiences involved an 11-year-old girl whose parents died but who has participated in Hoosier Hitters, a club for kids 12-and-under interested in being a part of the IU volleyball family, and attended the volleyball camp every year.
“I took our captains to the funeral, and this little girl lit up when she saw our kids,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “Then we had her be a guest coach for us this past weekend, and she came out and gave me a hug and said, ‘This is the best day for me.’ We are capable of doing that and making someone’s day better just because we put time into it and care about people.”
Junior outside hitter Jessica Leish serves as the team’s community outreach liaison on its leadership council.
She believes volunteering in the community is important for the individual and the team.
“We are given so much coming here in terms of gear and travel and scholarships that to give back is really important,” Leish said. “Even in the hour or so per week we spend with the children, we get so much out of it.”
In the spring semester, every player has a place to go to once a week, including Meadowood Health Pavilion retirement home and the Ellettsville Boys & Girls Club. Dunbar-Kruzan admits she is partial to the club since she is from Ellettsville.
During the season, residents of Meadowood are bussed to University Gym multiple times to cheer on the Hoosiers and even get some tech help.
“The kids on our team love to hear the stories, and they learn from those stories,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “They learn very valuable life lessons just by sitting down and talking to them, whereas our girls have helped some of them figure out how to use email and things like that. It’s the simple things in life where they can sit back and say, ‘My game is better because I got to visit with this person.’”
Sophomore defensive specialist Samantha Fogg has always wanted to work with little kids and loves being able to simultaneously have fun and give back.
Last weekend, members of the team were able to participate in a nature walk and an arts-and-crafts project with the school children, which Fogg says was the most fun activity she has done while volunteering to this point.
IU Athletics presents one of its teams with the 24 Sports, One Team Program of Excellence Award each year to recognize a program that has exemplified a strong commitment to service, leadership, education and sportsmanship. The winning team is selected based on a point system that takes into account hours of service and amount of other teams’ events attended.
The IU volleyball team won the award for the 2014-15 season, and its coach uses the recognition to develop her coaching philosophy for each of her student-athletes.
“Indiana Athletics as a whole does a very good job of giving back to the community,” Dunbar-Kruzan said. “As head coaches, it is our job to make sure that we make volunteering important and not just something we do. I know our kids enjoy it because they tell me the stories, and sometimes they do extra time because they feel like it’s valuable.”
