40 Hours for the Forty Acres April 2022

Who We Are

The UT Archery club is a competitive and recreational sports club. At the start of each year, we welcome new members with a wide range of archery experience, from those who have never shot before to those who have competed for years. We provide equipment for all of our incoming archers and teach them everything they need to know to have fun shooting a bow on their first day. 

Our 3 coaches work with each student individually to improve and learn. Throughout the year, we encourage archers to participate in competitions for practice, for community and team building, and, most importantly, for fun! At the end of each year, our members are ready to shoot at the annual national collegiate tournament in a 3-day archery event.

Image ID: one of our archers, Sam, at full draw at the 2019 Collegiate Target Nationals competition in Columbus, OH.

 

What We’re Fundraising For

We rely on 40 for Forty gifts to send archers to our national collegiate tournament in the spring. We strive to ensure that every archer who qualifies and wants to attend can compete, so we want to make sure finances are never an obstacle for our archers! We've sent archers to Ohio, Florida, California, and all over the US to compete. We also fund travel for more local or regional tournaments here in Texas to introduce our new members to tournaments. Without our generous donors, we would be severely limited in the experiences we could provide to each of our archers.

Image ID: the sun sets as Ben and Karen finish up a fall 2021 practice.

 

Since losing our indoor range in 2017, our typical membership has maintained 60 members per year. However, this fall, we doubled that number! With our roster at over 120 members and our competitive team at over 20 members and growing, we've seen record membership and interest for the last five years. While our officers and coaches are ecstatic to work will all these new archers, it also means we have new demand for equipment and facilities. It's thanks to our donors that we are able to continue to support these 120+ archers to the best of our ability and provide them the resources to be awesome at archery (and also awesome, in general).

Image ID: archers spent a day volunteering by kayaking on Lady Bird Lake and collecting trash.

This summer, we're looking forward to our next major field upgrade: getting electricity out to our range! Our range for the last 5 years has consisted of a large field with a couple of barns for storage. As is, we have no lighting or power sources on our range. This limits our practice time (since we cannot shoot at night) and makes hosting tournaments (which require an electronic timing system) much more difficult. Our goal is to purchase a brand new generator so we can have a more permanent source of power on our range. 

Your Impact

Tournaments are a great opportunity for archers to get involved in the archery community, make new friends, visit new places, and get valuable archery practice. This spring, Collegiate Target Nationals is held in Chula Vista, CA, at the Olympic Training Center. This is a wonderful opportunity for our archers, and we're hoping to send our competitive team of over 20 archers! For some of our competitive members who joined in the fall, this will be their first national tournament!

We also use our funds to maintain and buy new equipment for our members, so that all those interested in archery, regardless of experience or financial situation, can participate in our club! Here's a quick rundown of what your donation could be used for: 

• $5 - New finger tabs! We use these to protect our hands from the bowstring.
• $10 - An arm guard! We use these to protect our arms from the bowstring.
• $25 - A new sight! So we can aim for gold. 
• $30 - A gallon of 100% isopropyl alcohol for cleaning literally everything we have. We've continued to practice safely during the COVID-19 pandemic thanks to careful planning and support from RecSports!
• $100 - A new beginner bow! With all our new members, we have been looking to expand our available equipment. 
• $500 - A competitive set-up! Bows used for target archery are made up of many different components. This donation would cover the cost of a competitive set-up of the same style shot at the Olympics.
• $1,500 - A new generator (and all the necessary fixin's) to provide electricity to our range!

Image ID: fall 2021 beginners at their first off-campus tournament at Central Texas Archery!

 

During the fall 40 for Forty campaign, we raised an unprecedented $16,000! 40 for Forty is our premier fundraising effort, and without the help of our generous donors, we wouldn't be able to achieve a fraction of what we set out to do each year. It's thanks to your donations that we have the equipment and travel accommodations to compete. In fact, thanks to a series of donations over the last few years, we have finally been able to purchase an additional barn! This new shed has been affectionately named Room 12, after the storage space we used to have in our indoor range. We've also been able to replace some of our old field equipment, including a new timing system for hosting archery tournaments right here at UT!

Image ID: our new barn being delivered.

 

On behalf of all our archers, we'd like to profoundly thank you for your continued support!

If you'd like to keep up with us throughout the year, you can follow us on Facebook, or check out our website!