The Youngstown State University Biology Club held its annual Bowl A Strike Against Cancer charity event on Saturday, raising $1,000 for the American Cancer Society.
Held at Camelot Lanes in Youngstown, the event didn’t draw in as much as last year’s event, which drew in $2,000. Still, club president Max Gocala said it was a successful day.
“Even though it wasn’t as successful as we hoped, it was good,” he said. “We have 127 university organizations, but we were only able to fill nine lanes. So there wasn’t the turnout that I hoped for, but we still were able to raise a good amount of money.”
This was the seventh year in a row the Biology Club has held Bowl A Strike. Gocala said they enjoy sponsoring for such a worthy cause.
“Every dollar helps,” he said. “So the importance is that us being able to raise the amount of money that we have, hopefully it’s able to go to further research or providing someone with the care that they need. We know it’s kind of a small piece to the puzzle, but anyway we can help out, we want to.”
The American Cancer Society is a nationwide voluntary health organization devoted to eliminating cancer.
The event included food and soft drinks as well as gift basket raffles. Gocala believes Bowl A Strike will continue in the future.
“For years to come this should be a good event,” he said. “It’s a good money-raising tool for the American Cancer Society.”
He added he has high hopes for the future of the YSU Biology Club as well.
“My term will be up soon, but I hope that the board that is to come will use the foundation that we built and grow upon it,” Gocala said. “I think that this year we were able to increase the membership and lay the groundwork so that next year they can go above and beyond what we did this year.”
Gocala said he especially believes the future is bright since this year was mainly one for “rebuilding and restructuring” of the club.
“I think next year, it’ll benefit greatly from what we were able to do,” he said.