Jasper Dancers at their annual garage sale fundraiser.
JOSHUA REICHARD / THE QUADRANGLE
Joshua Reichard, Asst. A&E Editor
Manhattan University’s (MU) Division I dance team, the Jasper Dancers, is getting creative with their fundraising efforts. The cold weather couldn’t stop them, as they held their annual garage sale indoors in Kelly Commons on Feb. 17.
The Jasper Dancers are MU’s DI club dance team that competes locally and nationally while performing events throughout the year for the school community. As they prepare for their busy spring season, they continue to fundraise for their trip to the NDA (National Dance Alliance) nationals in Daytona Beach, Fla.
According to the GoJaspers website, the university’s official athletics website, the team had an eventful 2024-25 academic year, placing highly at the regional NDA competition, and traveling to Florida to compete at the national level. They are looking forward to continuing that progress in the spring semester.
“The Jasper Dancers competed in two events at the Walt Whitman Invitational, Jazz and Hip Hop,” the GoJaspers website stated. “The team would take home first place in College Hip Hop and third place in College Jazz. Additionally, the team was awarded an Innovative Choreography award.”
With another trip to nationals and the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) basketball tournament scheduled, the team has increased their fundraising efforts, planning different events that can help their team meet their monetary goal. The garage sale held on Tuesday, Feb. 17 was their most recent fundraising effort.
Brooklyn Schriver, a senior and co-captain of the Jasper Dancers, was happy with the strong community turnout at the event.
“It was definitely more [people] than expected,” Schriver said. “There was a pretty good turnout, especially with how cold it is. Seeing people support us and buy things was really nice.”
Julianna Bambina, a sophomore and the fundraising coordinator for Jasper Dancers, spoke with The Quadrangle about the event which featured a variety of clothing items and accessories for sale, donated by dance team members, as well as other members of the community.
“We mostly sold clothes and other accessories, like jewelry, more specifically antique jewelry, watches and cute necklaces and bracelets,” Bambina said. “The clothes were our clothes that we donated, or from our family who gave some away.”
JOSHUA REICHARD / THE QUADRANGLE
While the sale was originally scheduled to take place in Kelly Commons room 4A, the team decided it would be better to change locations to the second floor outside of the campus bookstore, to get more foot traffic.
For Bambina, the highlight of the event was seeing the joy that they brought to students, and other community members.
“We started in Kelly 4A, but there weren’t as many people there, so we moved down here to the second floor to hopefully get more sales and make more money,” Bambina said. “We were able to make a lot of girls happy. They were on FaceTime, buying things for other people as well, so it made their days too.”
In her new position, Bambina now oversees and organizes the team’s entire fundraising efforts throughout the academic year, including this past week’s sale.
“I’m in charge of all the funds that we raise, and all the money from this garage sale and other fundraisers that we plan… It’s all for nationals in Daytona, Florida, where we compete in our hip-hop and jazz routines in our DI category,” Bambina said. “The garage sale has been a tradition throughout many years on our team, I did it last year as well. I remember doing it as a rookie, and now as the fundraising coordinator, I was able to host it and be in charge of it.”
The team is looking forward to attending the NDA nationals in April as well as the MAAC tournament in March, with the funds that they raised throughout the year.
“We’re really excited for that, and we hope we can raise as much as possible and also before the MAAC tournament, where all of the basketball teams in the D1 category compete, where our men’s and women’s basketball teams will be and where we will be supporting them,” Bambina said.
While the garage sale has passed, the team has other fundraisers scheduled, like their hot chocolate and cookies event in Thomas Hall on Feb. 27 where treats can be purchased to continue to support the team’s efforts.
“We will be having a hot chocolate and cookies event, which will be in Thomas hall on Feb. 27,” Bambina said. “Everyone can stop by and get hot chocolate. And we will have treats that we will be selling to fundraise for nationals in Daytona. We will be having a lot more fundraisers where students can donate to support us, and they can watch us at the games to see where their money goes.”