Rugby High School’s community building class invited the public to a large game of beanbag toss downtown last Tuesday, and an enthusiastic crowd responded.

“We ended up getting 44 pre-registered teams online, so we had a pretty good idea it would be a successful event,” community building instructor Kevin Leier noted.

The two-person teams participated in several rounds of “cornhole”, a popular game where beanbags are tossed through holes in wooden boards.

“The students lined up all the bean bag sets; did all the marketing, all the advertising for it, and then, they went down on Tuesday, and we set up the cones, blocked out the street, and got everything set up,” Leier said, “and we ended up with 48 teams when we got everyone set up and registered that night.”

Leier said of the crowd, “with spectators, we got probably over 160 people downtown at one time, which is really cool.” “And,” he added, “what was really fun was we were breaking down how the event went after we were all done that night, and it only took us about an hour and a half to play the tournament all the way out, so it was a pretty short event, but it went really well.”

“The students were really excited, because they felt like it was actually successful.”

Leier said students sought their own funding, and discovered the grant writing process.

“The cool part about it was we ended up in our process getting a Thrivent Financial Action Grant. It was for $250, and that funded everything, so we didn’t ask any charity for anything; it was just a community fun event,” he noted.

Leier said teams for the event spanned a wide age range.

“The youngest team were six, two girls; and the oldest team was probably in their sixties. So, we played to a whole range of people, which was really fun to see them interacting. And that was the whole point to try to get all ages and backgrounds out there and just have fun as a community,” Leier explained.

Observing the event was also fun, according to Leier.

“Kids were having a lot of fun, and friendly competition, too,” he noted. “…You could tell there was an immense amount of satisfaction (for the nine members of the class) in terms of being able to plan something, and then, play through all the details, and carry it out.”

“The (class members) were already saying, ‘What if we come back and help out next year? The senior boys?’ I said, ‘absolutely’. Let’s keep it going, and maybe it could be something we just shoot for in the spring to get people out and doing something as summer approaches.”