May 7, 2008

There is none higher



We're a couple of months since this year's Pasta for Pennies campaign wrapped up. We've been organizing reward parties (sundaes for one class, pizza for three classes, pasta for four, donuts for 250 students and staff - you know how it is) and writing thank you notes since then, but this week we got some HUGE news.

I'm kinda proud of the campaign, so I'm going to brag for a paragraph or so. Feel free to skip to the huge news in the paragraph after the braggadocio.

We've finished among the top three fundraising schools in the nation for this campaign for - including this year - eight years now. In that time period, we've raised over two-hundred sixty-five thousand dollars from student bake sales, storefront collections, raffles, concerts, 5Ks, head shavings, cornhole tourneys, poker parties, matching grants, and all sorts of other stupid, juvenile stunts.

And this year...for the 2008 Pasta for Pennies campaign...we raised...

drum-roll please...

$46161.77

That's a new record for our school (only the second time we've crossed the $40K line) and totally destroyed our goal of $42,008 this year (for two thousand eight, get it?).

And even more excitedly, we finished as the...

#1 school in the nation


...this year.

Go ahead and read those last few lines again. Let them sink in. Let them percolate around in your brain and stick there for a while.

I'll wait...














Our students are awesome.

Their awesome is more awesome than your awesome.

Their awesome got together with their great and had a baby named amazing.

Their awesome smells like French toast.

French toast?

Their rockingness apologizes for making your awesome look pedestrian.

Honestly, big, major pride here - most of it because our students and staff work so hard, and we've finished in second place a whole lot of times, and it's really, really nice to finish first.

Admittedly, I wish we hadn't buried the competition (apparently winning by $10,000 over second place this year) because that means the LLS didn't get as much money this year as they could have, but I'll settle.

In the coolness of the announcements, Karen Taylor (rockin' Southern Ohio School & Youth coordinator) surprised me - and Calen, my campaign co-chair - with a bouquet of helium-filled balloons in the middle of my third-bell class. There was severe stunnage.

I gave the balloons out to my students because they did much of the work, raising more than $313 per person. I ended up with two unclaimed balloons, however, and tied them onto my belt, advertising our accomplishment to everyone I wandered past in the halls and being followed by my red balloon (and its mylar friend).

I felt like the kid in The Red Balloon...

5 comments:

achilles3 said...

WOWsers!
Congrats!

calencoriel said...

You know, it's interesting to read this because if you ask him again and again during the campaign, he'll tell you that he doesn't care if we win...that he doesn't want to win...and that I am definitely the one who does want to win.

I'm the one who couldn't announce our total to the school bc it was so awesome it brought me to tears...I'm the one who gets all emotional with the kids and is a basketcase for most of the campaign...

And then on the day we found out, I wasn't surprised, but kind of validated...like, "Heck yeah, we won...we raised 45K, we better win"

...and then he gets all proud and stuff...I swear, you work with a guy on a campaign for 4 years, you think you know him...

DanEcht said...

Just...damn. Jealous of your newly revised awesomeness.

ReJEcht said...

I feel like a schmuck, consdering I only brought the class Average down.

PHSChemGuy said...

Thanks, Lakes...

Calen - it's weird to me, too. We put our total out there every year and we finish second pretty much every year. This year we went so far above and beyond, and I honestly meant (and mean) every bit about "if we finish second and earn more money for the society, I'm okay with it"...and by the same token, winning feels amazing...wonderful...and I think a large part of it is that our kids do such amazing things for the campaign - give up so much of their lives to help us (and honestly, as much as I wish it weren't true, your enthusiasm and mine is a huge part of the campaign) that they should be recognized not as the second best every year but as #1...

it's not important to win all the time, but it is kinda important from time to time to win, I guess...

Dan - thanks...you're a part of what got us here...we do what we do because we stood on the backs of giants - Goohs and every student who helped her, every student who helped me and Calen...congrats goes to you as well...

Mr Echt - I wouldn't ever refuse more money...start saving up so you can carry your class next year, 'cause it's pretty likely you won't have me or Calen, and now you know what a good class is all about...get ready to lead...