It never hurts to be kind and to make a difference in the world.
That’s the message Jennifer Ray, Student Council Advisor at Orient-Macksburg, hopes one initiative her student council worked on recently will portray. Students and staff were able to pay small amounts of money to wear costumes, a hat or blue jeans to school on Halloween.
Students could pay $2 to wear their costume to school and $1 to wear a hat to school. Staff could choose to wear a costume or jeans for $5.
Ray’s husband, Eldon, has battled colorectal cancer and underwent treatment at Greater Regional Health’s cancer center in Creston. Money raised by the O-M school will be used to buy items for goodie bags that will then be assembled and delivered to the cancer center so they can be used by patients there.
October was Breast Cancer Awareness Month, however the fundraiser is aimed at all who are battling any form of cancer.
“We spent some time at the cancer center, and they always gave Eldon these bags, like one had a blanket in it with mints, a notebook, chap stick...it was a really nice canvas bag. Another one had lotion, a bandanna and mints in it,” Ray said. “He was so [appreciative] and it just made him feel better.”
Ray ended up telling her student council president, Cameo Walker, about the idea of goodie bags. The student council decided to go forward with the project. Ray said she enjoyed arriving at school last Wednesday morning seeing all the people who had participated.
“I told [Cameo] we should do more civic things, more things for the community, so that’s kind of where the idea came from,” Ray said. “All the money will go to purchase the paper bags with handles on them, then whatever else we have we’ll get whatever we can get to as many bags as we can, then we’ll take them to the cancer center for them to hand out.”