Things were looking bleak for the Brunell Ladies Basketball Club.
The team of 16- and 17-year-olds from Cork, Ireland, had held bingo nights, trivia contests, sold “old and unwanted clothes,” solicited sponsorships from businesses and used a popular Irish sports betting game to raise $31,000. They planned to travel to the United States and attend Karen Barefoot's team basketball camp at Old Dominion in August.
The trip was nearly two years in the making. The club – one of the best in Ireland – comes to the U.S. to play every other summer, and planning for the ODU visit began shortly after the team returned from a camp at Drake University in Iowa in 2015.