Coins, competition, community, and cream. All four of these came together in support of social studies teacher Jennifer Leahy to create a school-wide fundraiser raising $1124.94 during Winterfest. The fundraiser was started by senior Tasi Ana Sanchez who got the idea to create a fundraiser, but wanted something unique that matched the competitive theme of Winterfest.
“I decided on a coin drive because something everyone likes is competition, and if we were to do a bake sale or something similar to that, it would cut out the competition aspect. I thought that doing this would encourage more participation simply because it’s new,” Sanchez said.
The rules weren’t traditional either, instead of having last place be the only teacher who gets pied, second place also wasn’t safe; establishing a scheme to create a donation dog-fight between students of the top two teachers.
“I liked having second place and last place getting pied because it made a motivation to be high in the ranking, but not too high unless you’re first. I thought it overall encouraged teachers and students to participate more,” Sanchez said.
The teacher adviser for the event was science teacher Ben Sanderfoot who, despite managing the event, ended up in second place getting pied during the Winterfest pep rally.
“It made me chuckle. Especially because early on when kids were like, ‘Well, aren’t you the one that’s keeping track of the money, like, can’t you just rig this?’ But no, I’m gonna play for real. I’m not gonna break the rules just so I win. Every day, I kept watching the leaderboard update, and certainly knew it was coming,” Sanderfoot said.
Sanderfoot chose to help manage the drive due to his personal connections to cancer. The small workload of managing the scores and rallying his students to donate was nothing compared to the effects he hoped to create.
“Having my mom go through breast cancer, I know that there’s a big financial component to it, and I know that stuff like this makes a big impact. One, financially, but two, to just have that idea that you know that you have a big support group in your corner. Kind of day in, day out for all the stuff makes a huge impact on what she’s going through,” Sanderfoot said.
As for the difficulties with the drive, $1,000 in coins could fill up the biggest of piggy banks, and the daily totals had to be hand counted so that the leaderboards could accurately display who was in the lead. However, despite the meticulous work, there were some treasures in the metallic slew.
“I counted all the coins by hand and it was really frustrating. Ms. Schultz specifically brought in a giant gallon Ziploc bag of pennies. It was about $11 worth of pennies. But I did find two Canadian coins and a German coin in there, so that’s pretty cool,” Sanchez said.
Science teacher Nick Kvam found himself in last place the day of the pep rally, and partnered with Sanderfoot, causing both to earn a pie to the face. The one doing the pieing, social studies teacher Shelby Schultz, took great joy in doing so.
“I’m already extremely competitive, and then I saw Sanderfoot was winning, and I just couldn’t have that. So then I told everyone we really needed to kick it into gear. So it was kind of a back and forth. Sanderfoot, actually right before the assembly, was sending me songs, and one of them was American Pie. So it got pretty heated, but it was fun,” Schultz said.
Schultz’s classroom made up over a quarter of the total donations, a total propelled by a pact that she made to match everything her students brought in.
“She was one of the first people I ever met when I came to this school, and she’s my mentor, so she’s been extremely supportive of me in the changes I’ve been going through being a 1st year teacher. So I can’t imagine the struggles that she’s gonna have and if there’s any way I can help out, I want to” Schultz said.
Unfortunately for Schultz, no one was safe, and in a turn of events, Leahy ended up pieing Schultz to cap off the fundraiser.
“I pied Mr.Kvam and was like cool, whatever, and moved on to the next. As I was going to grab the pie for Mr. Sanderfoot, I saw the third one. So I looked at Ms. Leahy, and I said, ‘What’s the third pie for?’ And she just giggled. I had a sneaking suspicion, but I didn’t know until they announced it. It was a complete shock. But I was willing to take it, you know? It’s the fun of it,” Schultz said.
Despite the commotion and the antics of the event, the fundraiser not only helped Leahy financially, but also give her a mental boost as she knows the community is behind her.
“I’ve really appreciated all the support that I’ve gotten from my coworkers and from the students. It’s meant a lot through this whole process,” Leahy said.
