Photo Taken by Zoey Keele of golf concession members behind the scenes. Aaron Howard (left), Audrey Willmschen (middle), Daylee Howard (right), Zoey Keele (bottom).
Spilled top ramen, a broken water heater, buttery popcorn, cheesy mozzarella sticks, boiling hot coffee, long lines, roaring crowds and hungry fans. These are all of the elements that come into the girls golf concession stand at South Salem High School.
September 21, 2023 was the first opening of the girls golf team concession stand at South during the JV football game. Audrey Willmschen, Zoey Keele and Miette Hanowell are the three girls who are running the stand with their coaches, Aaron Howard and his wife Daylee Howard, with the help of Kathy August.
The concession stand is open during the JV and freshman football games at South every Thursday and ends October 26.
“It took a couple weeks to get things up and running and we prep each week with what we need. So I’m at Costco at least one time during the week,” said Mr. Howard.
With the money they earn they will be buying new uniforms, sweatpants, gloves, crewnecks and golf bags.
“We are gonna get better uniforms for the colder weather because it gets wet while we play. We had one game where we got sun, rain, hail, snow and then sun again all in one game. It was crazy,” said Keele.
They are also hoping that by doing the concession stand it will be more supported and bring more awareness to the sport.
“Girls golf isn’t a very supported and a known sport like Football or girls soccer. Those sports get more allowance than us because we are less popular. So we wanted to do something to help with that, which is why we now have a concession stand during the JV football games on Thursdays,” said Willmschen.
Some of the challenges they went through to get the stand up was getting equipment in order to run the stand.
“Getting supplies and equipment to be able to cook hotdogs and other foods but Mrs. August has been amazing and is helping us to get what we need,” said Mr. Howard.
Mrs. August is one of the reasons why the concession stands happened. She helped with coming up with the idea and had the leadership students make signs for the concession stands.
Since the district has been cutting down on what people can do during the day when it comes to fundraising, Mr. Howard asked August what a good fundraiser would be and that is how they came up with the concession stand.
“They asked me what could be a good fundraiser and one fundraiser I always told kids to do is the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts where you’d sell doughnuts. But the district probably wouldn’t let you do that. So I told them you should do concession stands and they all go well, don’t they already have concession stands but during and after covid we didn’t have them but people thought there was one at every game,” said August.
After Mrs. August showed Mr. Howard said it was a good idea that he and the golf team cleaned out the concession stand that is downstairs that had not been used in about 10 years. They also had the leadership help make posters and the menu.
“You have to have somebody willing to be the point person and I know Mr. Howard very well. He’s very organized and there’s a lot of behind the scenes that has to happen before the event happens. There’s a lot of shopping involved and a lot of bookkeeping. So you have to have an adult that’s willing to do that,” said August.
Mrs. August also thinks by having a concession stand ran by the girls golf team it will bring more awareness to not just girls golf but all women’s sports.
“I think we have to do whatever we can to continue to support all our teams and I’ve always felt like we do that here. And now there’s a girls wrestling team getting started so I think it’s pretty awesome,” said August.
