February 16, 2012

Charlottesville senior Molly Folger capped off her senior diving season with an eleventh place finish at the VSHL meet last weekend.

"She has a lot of strength," said Knights' diving coach Kelly Lloyd. "She's also a soccer player so that carries over well to diving."

Lloyd, a diver for UVa, can also attest to the patience it takes to be successful.

"It takes a lot of time to master the little things, making those little changes that make a difference."

"What people don't think about is you do use yours arms a lot," said Molly of what it takes to master the sport. "To just try to get height, just remember to get arms up and stand straight."

With soccer season coming soon, it's out of her love for that sport Molly's developed a fundraiser called 'Scoring Goals to End Hunger,' raising money for the Blue Ridge Food Bank and their Backpack Program.

"At first it was just raising as much as I could with one soccer tournament then I did a little bit more research about the food bank and decided that the backpack program was a really good thing to try to help."

Molly has raised over $5,000 and is most than halfway to her goal of $10,000 by the end of the school year. Martha Jefferson hospital is one local business that joined the cause, doubling Molly's first $2,000 with an equal donation amount to the food bank.

"It means a lot to them," said Molly. "Because that's one less thing they have to worry about. It's ten thousand dollars that they don't have to scrounge around and find somewhere."

Molly has also entered her project into a national fund-raising competition: The Julie Foudy Sports Leadership Academy's 'Choose to Matter' contest. Based on the number of votes received, a winner from each category to win an expense-paid trip to the 2012 Olympic Games as a Youth Ambassador for McDonald’s Champions of Play program.

"For someone who's grown up watching the Olympics, it would just be so much fun," Molly said of the opportunity to travel to London. "And I've also used this voting process to raise even more money."

To vote for Molly's "Scoring Goals to End Hunger Project" click here

Her submission is under her legal name Bridget Folger, in the New Jersey projects category.

Voting ends February 21, 2012.