Tournament proceeds will help expand NNVMath programs to reach more students
Walking through the grocery store, a fifth grade girl stops Sherry Griffin to say, “Thank you for letting me do math!” This happens regularly since Griffin began a local series of math contests designed to challenge children in grades 1-12, and to expose them to new math ideas and possibilities.
“It’s amazing how many kids get excited when they don’t know how to solve a problem. They’re used to learning math in such incremental steps that many times they don’t even realize they’re learning something new and start to think they’ve seen everything there is to see in math,” Griffin says.
Formed in 2011, the Northern Nevada Math Club (NNVMath) was originally a group of seventh through 12th graders practicing together to attend and compete in a national math contest held each June in Las Vegas. In 2014, Griffin registered NNVMath as a nonprofit and was recognized by the IRS as a 501(c)3 Charitable Organization a year later. This will be NNVMath’s fourth year running programs, which now include summer and winter break math camps and after school clubs. The original group is now the Competition Team and included 16 boys and 17 girls for the 2017-18 school year.
On Sept. 22, NNVMath hosts a Bean Bag Toss Tournament Fundraiser at the West Street Market in Reno. Why a Bean Bag Toss to raise money for a math program, you may be thinking? “It’s amazing how many people want to support what we do, but get nervous thinking they’ll need to do math on the spot. Events like this Bean Bag Toss Tournament are safe ways for them to dip their toes in, find out who we are and what we are about, and how they can get involved,” says Griffin. Proceeds will be used to expand NNVMath programs to reach more students and to obtain a space where they can prepare and run programs.
The details:
- Sept. 22, 2018, 1 p.m., West Street Market in Reno
- Regular registration is $40/person or $70/squad
- Two-player squads will compete against each other in elimination rounds, with the top scoring squad taking home the bag-toss trophy
- Registration is online at www.RenoBags.com
- On-site registration the day of the event will be $45/person.
