Howard W. Hewitt – Adult members of the Wabash and Crawfordsville community are often amazed at the philanthropic efforts of Wabash men. Wednesday night the students were amazed at the community’s generous heart.

Last year members of the football team went on a mission trip to Botswana, Africa. There are 15 student-athletes going back this spring break. The team held a spaghetti dinner fundraiser before Wednesday’s final home basketball game to help defray costs for each student going on the mission.

The students readily admitted they didn’t expect the out-pouring of support.

"First of all, all of us want to thank the Wabash community and the Crawfordsville community, as well, for their support tonight," said sophomore defensive lineman Chris Beedie, who is helping organize the trip. "It was truly awesome to get to see both communities come together to support our efforts over spring break. 

"Because of everyone’s generosity, we were able to raise a total of $2,760.56 for our trip to Botswana this year.  This was far more than we had expected and we are extremely grateful for how the donations will alleviate some of the costs for the trip this year. This took a huge load off of our personal fundraising efforts and will help us to invest in the lives of hundreds of children in Botswana in a few short weeks."

The young men had worked prior to Wednesday’s event to line up sponsors to help defray the costs of putting on the dinner. Those sponsors were: WalMart, Buffalo Wild Wings, Burger King, Wendy’s, Dairy Queen, Long John Silvers, County Market, Papa Murphy’s, Fantastic Sam’s, Ace Hardware, Sears Optical, McDonald’s, Subway, Auto Zone, Kroger, Sears, Sherwin Williams, Shelter Insurance, Tropical Tan, Great Clips, GFS, Town and Country Hardware.

"This list really shows how invested the Crawfordsville community is in Wabash College and how many businesses were willing to help send a group of Wabash Men to Africa over spring break," Beedie said.