Sacred Heart Academy’s spell-a-thon raises funds

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

A spell-a-thon hosted by Sacred Heart Academy raised over $14,000 much-needed funding for school programs.
School vice principal Lauren Zulyniak said the support received from the spell-a-thon was “phenomenal from our family and friends of Sacred Heart.”
The spell-a-thon is Sacred Heart’s one and only annual fundraiser from school council and is held each fall. It is led by a parent committee which does all the behind the scenes work. Funds raised go towards school council-sponsored events for students in musical, drama and sports, such as the Alberta Opera, Evergreen Theatre and Curling Canada’s Rocks & Rings program.
Amanda Mansell is the chairperson for the school council and, with other committee parents, helped organize this year’s spell-a-thon.
The students were given a list of spelling challenge words by grade level, and then studied and practiced their words at home and at school. They then sought pledges from family, friends and the community, to help sponsor them in their spelling challenge. Students discussed setting personal goals with community members.
For example, one personal goal may have been stating an intention to try their best and work towards 100 per cent on the test.
Tests were taken in each student’s classroom and results tallied and given to the parent school council committee. The collected money went back to school council and then the school committee held a big reveal with tallied results on Oct. 28 lead by Amanda Mansell.
“We kept the amount hidden and then we had a fun spelling bee challenge with our teachers on that assembly day as part of the reveal,” said Zulyniak.
After the announcement of total money raised, some prize categories were awarded and all students who participated in the spell-a-thon were entered into random prize draws for each grade level. Prizes were awarded for the highest number of fundraisers.
The school council awarded prizes “as a bit of an incentive for the kids,” said Zulyniak, who added that there were a lot of local businesses that sponsored prizes and the school council committee also purchased some prizes to give out.
Everybody also received donated McDonald’s and Dairy Queen coupons.
The spell-a-thon fundraiser campaign has been in operation since 2003 and continues to do well each year. Zulyniak said the campaign drew an all-time high one year of approximately $18,000.
“It’s great to see the support our family and friends give to our school,” said Zulyniak. “It was a great effort from the parents and very nice to see that we’re getting that support in our school community.”