The Washington County Riverboat Foundation held a special meeting Monday for a surprise grant given to the Hawkeye Wrestling Academy. 

The Hawkeye Wrestling Academy is a nonprofit organization founded by University of Iowa 4x All American, 4x Big Ten Champion, Hawkeye Wrestling Club member Alex Marinelli. The academy provides one-on-one coaching to youth, middle school, and high school wrestlers in Iowa City. 

Board member Todd Patterson made the request, “The Hawkeye Wrestling Academy is a non-profit in the Iowa City/Coralville area that trains wrestler, youth wrestlers. I believe it’s ages four up through high school with a lot of emphasis on the youth aspect of that. They share facilities right now with in the old Dan Gable wrestling room, and they are kind of just beg, borrowing, and stealing for space and resources and facilities. Currently they serve about 250 athletes through a series of camps and wrestling practices that go year round. They also take kids to free style wrestling events and other types of wrestling events. Often kids are not able to provide their own transportation, it has excluded them from being able to attend if they can’t catch a ride with somebody. They have Tulsa Nationals coming up in November and they are trying to get as many kids out to that as possible, so there are a significant number of underserved kids that are a part of his academy.”  

The grant is in the amount of $10,000 and will be used for transportation costs. There are kids from Washington and Louisa counties that utilize this academy. 

Last time a surprise grant was announced was for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office K9 unit in the amount of $10,000.

The competitive fall grant cycle awards will be held November 19th at the Riverside Casino and Golf Resort. Since its inception in 2006, the Foundation has awarded over $75 million.