Members of the South Dakota Mines Hardrocker Ally Association who are
hosting a new local charity fundraiser called Beyond the Game include Jake
Martinelli, Daunte Robbins, Kaleb Roth and Kyante Christian. Roth is holding a
computer showing the new Beyond the Game crowdfunding website he helped
create.
South Dakota
Mines athletes who are part of the Hardrocker
Ally Association student group are launching a new charity
fundraiser called Beyond the
Game that uses crowdfunding to raise money for childhood cancer families.
The annual Beyond the Game fundraising goal is set
by the number of points scored by multiple Hardrocker athletic teams during the
year including football, volleyball, basketball, golf, soccer, and track and
field. Kaleb Roth, a graduate student in engineering management at Mines, is one of the
co-founders of the charity effort. Roth is a running back on the Hardrocker football
team. He hopes this fundraiser will leverage the love of the game into a bigger
impact off the field.
“The whole idea is to bring a greater significance
to the sports,” says Roth. “We all have a great passion for athletics, and you
might play a great game on Saturday night and on Sunday it’s over and potentially
forgotten. This brings a more lasting significance to people’s lives by helping
those in need.”
Roth says the fundraiser is tied to Mines athletic
success in an effort to make it more dynamic and interesting to follow. “It all
ties back to the love of the game,” says Roth. “The more points we score, the
more impact we have on people’s lives.”
Roth worked alongside the university’s Center for
Alumni Relations and Advancement (CARA) to launch a new crowd-based
funding website for Beyond the Game. The money raised will go to families experiencing
childhood cancer in the Midwest area through the Team Ashtyn Foundation. Tory and
Jennifer Schwartz founded the Team Ashtyn Foundation on behalf of their
daughter Ashtyn who was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after her third
birthday. Their vision is to benefit local families going through similar
battles with childhood cancer by offering small magical moments for children
with the disease.
Roth started the Beyond the Game effort in 2021 with
a fellow student athlete, Alex Reader, who graduated with a degree in
biomedical engineering in May of 2022. His ongoing effort in his final year in
graduate school is to promote the crowd-sourced fundraiser. “This is something that will increase the
significance of athletics overall,” Roth says.