A Boost & A Splash
A BOOST
When I stopped by the college earlier this afternoon, there was a line of athletes out the door of the Bear Center:
They are all arriving today to compete in the NCAA DIII Indoor Track & Field Championships being hosted at Grinnell College tomorrow and Saturday. Not only does this event draw 600+ college athletes from across the country, but it also brings their families and spectators, growing Grinnell by a few thousand people.
Hosting the national track meet is a fantastic boost to local tourism, but it's certainly not the only boost we see during the year. Sports tourism has a tremendous impact on our community. If you check the activity calendars at the high school, the college or Ahrens Park, you'll see how many weekends are filled with athletic events that attract visitors to our community.
We in Grinnell are very fortunate to have unusual sports facilities for a community of our size, and those facilities allow us to host a variety of sporting events all year long, which draw thousands upon thousands of visitors here over the course of a year. When these teams and spectators visit our community, they are putting money into our local economy by purchasing food, going shopping, filling up at the gas station and staying in our hotels. This provides an economic boost to our community by bringing in outside dollars.
In an effort to increase the number of sporting events hosted in Grinnell, a group of locals have been working to plan more tournaments here to maximize the use of our sports facilities. Our community is also one of ten Iowa communities that received this year's state Sports Authority grant, which provides funding to support communities' efforts to increase tourism through sporting events. Our local Sports Authority committee awards mini-grants to assist many groups with the expense of hosting tournaments and events locally.
A SPLASH
While we're on the topic of sports tourism today, it's the perfect time to announce the 2016 Grinnell Games schedule! Save the date for June 11-12, because we have so many fun things in store for the event this year. We're very excited to add a big splash to this year's Games - a UV Splash, that is. The UV Splash will be that Saturday night and is a fun 5K run/bike event complete with black lights, glow necklaces and lots of color.
This year's Grinnell Games schedule includes:
See the full schedule and details at GrinnellGames.com. Please consider participating or volunteering to help us make this the biggest Grinnell Games yet!
~Emily Counts
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