MARYSVILLE — In just three weeks, the students of Cascade Elementary raised $3,220.73 through a penny drive for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, which they presented to the group, complete with an oversized check, at an assembly on March 18.
“Last year, we raised almost $600 for the society,” said Tammie Hogan, TOSA and Title I coordinator for the school. “This school is hurting, but its heart isn’t broken.”
Hogan and Therese Randall, the school’s student council coordinator, speculated that this year’s increased haul, which was generated from Feb. 22 through March 12, might be attributable in part to the “briefcases” that students received — cardboard boxes with string handles, each the size of a box of animal crackers — to fill with their daily collections of coins.
“It helped them remember, I think,” Randall said. “They loved shaking the money out.”
“We hear that’s the case a lot in elementary schools,” said Katie Dahl, school and youth campaign coordinator for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Hogan described the students as committed to filling up their briefcases every day, so much that none of them even mentioned the pizza party that was promised to the highest earners. Second-grader David Hernandez sat outside a bowling alley to help collect his $122 toward the cause, while fourth-grader Trevor Fisher went a long way toward generating his $250 for the society by setting up a table outside of a gun show in Puyallup. The two raised more money than any other individual students at the school.
“They all loved the competition,” Randall said. “You could see them talking about it in the halls.”
“The kick-off assembly got them into it too,” Hogan said. “The kids acted out the part of red and white blood cells. They’ve been pillars of responsibility.”
Dahl elaborated that the assembly educated students on how their funds would go toward medical research and providing care for patients and their families.
“Cascade is a place you come to for its atmosphere, not its aesthetics,” Hogan said. “We have good kids with good hearts here.”
