The University of Iowa is offering free tickets to its first two football games to Iowans who’ve been hit by flooding or tornadoes this year. Associate athletic director, Rick Klatt, says they’re offering tickets for the season opener against Maine on August 30th and the game against Florida International on September 6th.
"Literally thousands of Iowans had their lives turned upside down earlier this spring, and we know that its going to take them months, if not years to get back to some sort of normalcy," Klatt says. Klatt says they learned that tickets that normally would be sold by the visiting teams would be available, and they decided to give them away to disaster victims to give them "one day of normalcy."
Klatt says they can’t provide tickets to every disaster victim, and some might not want to participate, but the option is available. Klatt says providing some of the disaster victims a chance to get away from their troubles is a worthwhile thing to pursue. Klatt says you simply have to show you’ve been impacted by the disaster to apply.
Klatt says they spent some time talking with FEMA and discovered that the vast majority of people impacted have applied for disaster assistance, so that gave them the group of people. He says you simply have to send a copy of your FEMA form with everything but your name and address blacked out. Indicate which game you’d like to attend, and the university will send you the tickets. The university is also offering free tickets to individuals nominated by others as "Community Heroes."
"Thousands of Iowans helped their neighbors, the spirit of community, the spirit of volunteerism was really I think a great source of pride for our state," Klatt says. Klatt says its an open invitation for people who know others who gave time or money to help with the disasters, to nominate them for free tickets to the football game. Klatt says nominating someone is simple.
Klatt says there are nominating forms on-line at the Hawkeye website , or you can register on-line. The U-I will fill requests from disaster victims and nominations for "Community Heroes" on a first-come, first-served basis. http://