Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 9 No. 3 | January 2017

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8 Inside Hokie Sports
Tech student-athletes eclipse 2,000 hours
of community service this past fall
As part of its trip to the Belk Bowl held in Charlotte, North Carolina,
a small group of Virginia Tech football players visited the Levine
Children’s Hospital to hand out miniature footballs, sign autographs,
pose for photographs and simply offer holiday cheer to ailing children
of all ages. The remainder of the team went to Second Harvest Food
Bank in Charlotte to pack food and grocery items to be delivered to
needy people throughout the Charlotte metropolitan area.
Those two events were the final two community-service events of the
fall semester for Virginia Tech’s student-athletes, and as a group, they
completed 2,092 hours worth of community service in a five-month
span starting at the beginning of August. Student-athletes from each
of the school’s 22 varsity sports helped with at least one community
service project during the fall semester.
Tech’s football program led the way by participating in four projects
this fall. The program worked through Team IMPACT, a non-profit
organization that matches kids with life-threatening illnesses to
college teams, to make Elijah Oltmanns an honorary member of the
squad. Oltmanns, who lives in nearby Vinton, Virginia and is battling
lymphoma, attended practice, met with the players, received a jersey
and attended at least one game.
Also, the team packed
shoeboxes with gifts
as part of Operation
Christmas Child, a
Samaritan’s Purse
faith-based initiative
in which shoeboxes
filled with small gifts
are collected and sent
to children around
the world, and several
members of the team
worked with former player Shayne Graham, who sponsored a shopping
spree for needy local children in the New River Valley. Finally, the team
participated in the bowl-sponsored outings.
“For me, I’m thankful for everything I have, just being healthy and
stuff like that,” said Tech mike linebacker Andrew Motuapuaka, who
was part of the group that visited the children at Levine Children’s
Hospital. “I’m just glad that I could be a light to these kids and give
them hope and let them know that their dreams can come true.”
Community-service projects throughout the fall ranged from reading
to children at local elementary schools to working fall festivals at local
schools to working at the Montgomery Country Christmas Store to
volunteering as a marshal at the Color Me Rad run that raises money
for Special Olympics. The Tech women’s soccer team helped with the
flood relief efforts in West Virginia, the softball and men’s basketball
teams made visits to Carilion Children’s, a pediatric care services unit
of Carilion Clinic, and numerous student-athletes worked at United
Way events throughout the community and with Micah’s Backpacks.
The Virginia Tech Athletics Office of Student-Athlete Development
coordinates most of these events with officials from the various
organizations. Each team is required to participate in one event
throughout the academic year, though as the aforementioned list
suggests, most of Tech’s student-athletes participate in such projects
multiple times over the course of an academic year.
by
Jimmy
Robertson
Travon McMillian (34) and
Tremaine Edmunds talked with
several young children during
a visit to the Levine Children’s
Hospital in Charlotte.