Fundraising underway for new Lincoln Loggers Wrestling Club mats

The Lincoln Loggers Wrestling Club has seen many successes since it started in 2016, placing twice as a team at State Little Guy Wrestling competitions, taking home the 2017 first place trophy for small teams.

This year, the Loggers are looking to build on those successes with the purchase of new mats and uniforms with the help of several community partners.

Mats are a significant expense for the wrestling club, with 6-foot by 30-foot mats costing an estimated $765 each. The club is hoping to purchase five mats that, when put together, will have the Lincoln Loggers logo on them and create a 30-foot by 30-foot wrestling space. Until now, the club has been practicing with donated 20-year-old mats, according to a GoFundMe campaign sponsored by Hi-Country Snack Foods and Chief Operation Officer Steve Fehrs.

"I know that Ezra and the wrestling club, they wanted mats for the last couple of years," said Fehrs, adding that he offered to help them get set up with new ones on behalf of Hi-Country.

Another advantage to having new mats is that they would allow wrestlers more room to practice, as well as provide the opportunity to host meets in Lincoln. Additionally, wrestlers could easily practice year-round with the new mats, as set-up and care will be simpler and quicker.

Hi-Country launched fundraising efforts a week ago with a $1,000 donation to start. Fehrs said that with local business support, the campaign was only about $1,200 shy of their goal as of Monday.

"The business community has been pretty good and we're still waiting on a response on a few other businesses to see how much they'll fill in," Fehrs said.

If the campaign is able to raise additional funding beyond the cost of the mats, that will go to support travel, meets, and other needs of the club.

"There's different meets that they'll be able to attend, and they'll be able to expand the wrestling program," said Fehrs. He added that anyone who wants to contribute to the campaign can make checks payable to Lincoln Loggers Wrestling and deposit them at Citizens Alliance Bank.

In addition to new mats, the club has also been able to get additional singlets this year through support from the Blackfoot Valley Optimists Club. Singlets are one-piece wrestling uniforms that wrestlers wear. Singlets are handed out by the club at the beginning of each season, and wrestlers return them at the end of the season.

"The Optimists covered the cost of another batch of singlets. We're at 23 kids right now and still growing. I think we've got one or two more that might join in. We needed more singlets," said Ezra Schwalm, one of the Lincoln Loggers coaches.

"We try to get t-shirts for the kids every year with their name on their back, and they get to keep those," said Schwalm.

This year, those shirts were sponsored by Lambkins, who is also contributing to purchasing the mats.

The club also received an anonymous donation of 15 sets of headgear, said Schwalm.

For the next three weekends, the Lincoln Loggers plan to head to Big Sandy to get some wrestling practice in, even though the normal tournament schedule was canceled, said Schwalm.

"There's been other clubs reaching out and getting together and wrestling. It looks like right now Big Sandy is the only one that is able to host. There'll be one other team there. It'll be three teams. We'll pair the kids up as best we can and get as much wrestling as we can," Schwalm said.