RotaSmash. Photo from Rom Anzures, ABS-CBN News.
MANILA — New Manila South started RotaSmash as a fundraising project and fellowship arm for their beneficiaries.
Since then, the club -- which welcomes players regardless of skill level to play badminton with their fellow members -- has gotten more support and funding for the groups that they support.
This is why they have started "Champions of Change," a project wherein they give financial support to young student-athletes who want to make a name for themselves through the sport.
"We're now growing, and we're getting a lot of support, so we added the Champions of Change campaign. It aims to support our student-athletes who have potential," Andrew Arugay, the Rotary Club's incoming president, told ABS-CBN News during RotaSmash's 1st Badminton Tournament on Saturday.
RotaSmash eventually chose senior high student Keicy Lei Condeno and Adamson University's Nathaniel Acedillo as their scholar student-athletes, with the two standing out from 100 applicants.
"We went on a search for student-athletes, and we came out with two scholars," said Arugay, who started playing badminton three years ago.
"We invited student-athletes to submit their applications. We had a panel that looked at all applicants and invited them for an interview."
"The criteria was more of a holistic approach. There wasn't any tournament, we just looked at their background, track record, grades, and community involvement," he explained.
He then shared what they are expecting from the two in return.
"What we expect for them is to simply maintain everything why we selected them and to contribute to our community," he said before expressing their hopes of getting more scholars moving forward.
"We were hoping to support more scholar-athletes, but right now we can only support two. We are not getting enough support," he emphasized.
"With the support of more people, we will be able to support more student-athletes, and we're hoping to support more," he said.