Iowa Wesleyan Wrestling Sending Three Women to Compete at the Women’s Nationals: Looking for Help with GoFundMe

Mt. Pleasant, IA- Iowa Wesleyan University Wrestling has experienced a lot of success in the last three years, especially on the women’s side of things. The Tigers have three wrestlers with the ability to compete at the World Championships or the Olympics. The issue is the funding has been cut from wrestling due to Iowa Wesleyan University voting to close its doors on May 31st. Head Coach Jake Kadel opted to establish a Tiger Wrestling Club through USA Wrestling and create a GoFundMe to help alleviate some of the costs for these wrestlers to chase their dreams.

“We’re just trying to gain additional funds to help support that and their efforts because it’s been a goal for them to try and reach the World Championships again.”

Kadel talked about how he was hoping the money generated from the GoFundMe would take some of the stress off the shoulders of the athletes. Kadel talked about why he was doing this and some of the places the money would go towards.

“We had a commitment to our athletes that this was on the table and we signed them up, we got their flights and all that stuff ahead of time and now we don’t have our hotels, the food, and the traveling costs and all of that stuff for like the rental vans anymore…”

The three wrestlers looking to attend are Adaugo Nwachukwu, JoAnna Vanderwood, and Mia Palumbo. Nwachukwu is the defending U20 National Champion at 62KG and went on to win the bronze medal at the World Championships in Bulgaria last year. Vanderwood is a returning U20 All-American at 57KG. Lastly, Palumbo is a 2x NAIA National Runner-Up and previous double Fargo champion as she is registering at 50KG.

The goal of the GoFundMe is $10,000 and at the time of writing this article they have raised $7,830 dollars. Kadel extended his gratitude towards the community,

“I just wanted to say thank you for everybody’s support, obviously this is a super tough time for a lot of people, it’s just not a good situation overall. But we gotta make the most of it and move forward. So, everybody’s support is greatly appreciated and can’t thank everybody enough for everything that they’ve done for us as a program as a whole.”

If you would like to donate to the GoFundMe, then follow the link below.

Link:  Tiger Wrestling Club, organized by Jacob Kadel