MUSCATINE, Iowa–Every year, Junior Achievement of the Heartland’s financial literacy and workplace readiness curricula touch the lives of many students and help prepare them for successful futures. In Muscatine County alone, Junior Achievement will work with approximately 2,400 students. To help cover the cost of training volunteers and providing useful resources to maximize student learning, Junior Achievement hosts Bowl-a-Thons in the communities it serves. After stopping for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Junior Achievement looks forward to holding its 39th Bowl-a-Thon in Muscatine Feb. 12.
Bowl-a-Thon offers an afternoon of indoor fun right in the middle of winter when everyone needs a good excuse to get out of the house. Held at the Rose Bowl, located at 1411 Grandview Avenue in Muscatine, from 1 to 4 p.m., Bowl-a-Thon provides much more than just a fun game of bowling. Teams of five each get their own lane to enjoy three games or three hours of bowling. Throughout the afternoon, participants will also get chances to take team pictures, answer trivia questions and play special bowling games (like the red pin challenge) to win prizes, and enter into 50/50 drawings. One lucky participant will also receive a beautiful piece of diamond jewelry from Necker’s Jewelers as a door prize. Along with any prizes they win from special activities, each participant will receive a special Junior Achievement koozie as well. As Junior Achievement of the Heartland Senior Director of Marketing and Special Events Katie Sothmann noted, “bowling is fun, but getting to bring something home is fun too.”
If you and a team of four other friends, family members, or coworkers would like to get in on the fun of this year’s Bowl-a-Thon, you may register by visiting Junior Achievement of the Heartland’s website. If you would like to participate but do not have a full team of five, Junior Achievement can help you find enough willing people to complete your group.
Registration costs $50 per team to cover the expense of renting their lane. Each team will also need to fundraise at least $300 to participate in the event. Though some people shy away from the idea of fundraising, Sothmann reports many teams have found the process quite enjoyable. “I hear so many stories and see so many photos of people having fun fundraising,” she shared.
Though Junior Achievement held an online trivia bowl via Zoom in 2021 to keep their annual February fundraising tradition going, Sothmann felt it did not have quite the appeal that Bowl-a-Thon does and looks forward to bringing the event back this year. “The day of, you’ll see all sorts of community organizations coming together,” she beamed.
With Bowl-a-Thon coming up in less than a month, Sothmann hopes you will dust off your bowling shoes and come out to support Junior Achievement as they continue to offer high quality programs to students throughout the county. “All the funds raised go to educational experiences at local schools,” she emphasized.
