This past weekend our teams (track and cross country) participated in two community events.
The Avenues Street Fair is an annual event in the historic "Avenues" neighborhood north of campus and downtown Salt Lake City. Vendors, organizations, and other community groups set up tents and stands promoting their items or organizations during this fun weekend event. Utah Athletic teams take turns manning the both throughout the morning and afternoon promoting their programs and speaking with the people and families who stop by the booth to meet them. We split the track team (non cross country runners) in two and had each group cover an hour time slot. They had a lot of fun and enjoyed speaking with all the different people who attended and asked questions. They also handed out stickers, balloons and signed autographs for the kids.
University Health Systems also had a Health Fair on our campus. Lots of vendors and organizations participated in this event that focused on good health. Our women's cross country team covered this event for our program. Like the Avenues Street Fair, they helped promote Utah athletics and our program by speaking with attendees, signing autographs, and being enthusiastic.
These community events are great ways to reach out to the community and our fans who support us. Everyone is positive and wants to know how we are doing and what our expectations for the upcoming year are. They are also excellent networking opportunities for our upperclassmen who are looking for jobs after they graduate. In both cases we had lots of help. This meant that we could always keep a few student athletes at the both and let the others wander around the Fairs meeting and greeting people and checking out the individual tents and stands.
Overall, it was another positive experience for all of our athletes and the time commitment was very minimal (one hour) for everyone. It also served as a team bonding event for our groups outside of practice or an athletics event.
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