Children helping children…it gets me every time! And I love it!
Students at Hopkins West Junior High in Minnetonka, Minnesota were asked to select a charity to design a service project around. And they chose Spinal Muscular Atrophy and the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation! But these students didn't simply end there. They went above and beyond, rallied their school around the cause, held a fundraising banquet, and educated the nearly 200 guests in attendance about the #1 genetic killer of young children!!! And they have made a difference!!!
We started our project last December and we chose to dedicate our cause to SMA. We have a classmate and friend who has SMA and we wanted to help him and others like him! We decided that as part of our final project, we would hold a “Spaghetti Banquet” to raise funds for SMA and we decided that we would donate our funds to the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation. Our decision to hold a banquet ended up being a lot more work than we expected. In the months leading up to our event we advertised donations at our school and sold silicone bracelets to students. After weeks of planning and organization our event night finally arrived. On Friday March 4th, 2011 we held our “SMA Spaghetti Banquet” at Christ Presbyterian Church in Edina. An estimated 180 quest attended our event. The night featured Buca di Beppo catering, a silent auction with over 35 items, a magician, a guitarist, and a presentation made by our class. Many guests were astounded to find out that the banquet was produced by 13 ninth graders. After all of the guests had gone and we had cleaned up, we sat down to total the money we had raised. There was a lot of suspense, until finally we were able to see our results. We raised $4,370 dollars throughout our service project! We were all amazed!
And so are we! What an incredible group of young men and women! We are so very, very impressed by the tenacity of these students and are so moved by their selflessness. Thank you Anika Bach, Rachel Bucker, Seugjin Chung (April), Jordan Deguzman, Eva Desvousges, Maggie Graham, Lauren Harlow, Nick Leeke, Drew Northrup, Alex Norton, Halina Pyzdrowski, Alex Tuthill-Preus and Hopkins West Junior High for making a difference!!! It is efforts such as yours that push an SMA treatment closer toward the finish line!!!