Elementary school exceeds fundraising goal
Students at Mill Creek Elementary run laps for the Maverick Mile fundraiser. The school exceeded the fundraising goal of $50,000.
Mill Creek Elementary’s PTA reached their goal for the school’s biggest fundraiser, Maverick Mile.
With a target amount of $50,000 and a pledged goal of $54,865, students at the elementary school managed to raise $51,089.54 in just 18 days—from Sept. 9 to Sept. 27.
“We really put a challenge in front of our students and all our parents, asking them to pull together,” said PTA President Allyson Willis. “We did this on our own and got to keep 100 percent of the money. Everyone gave 100 percent motivation, determination and participation.”
Maverick Mile is the PTA’s only fundraiser for the year, so Kara Lingerfelt, fundraising coordinator, said it was important to the association that they met their goal.
She said that $10,000 of the money will go toward an outstanding debt for the school’s new playground and $8,000 will pay for new reading software. The rest of the money will go to help teachers.
She said another $500 will come from the Boeing Company and $600 from a student pledge.
“School funds were prorated, so teachers have no extra money for their classrooms,” Lingerfelt said. “So the rest of that money will be used to help meet teacher needs, purchase smart boards light bulbs and the library will get some money because they don’t have very many books.”
She said the rest of the allocations are still being decided.
The fundraiser worked by students actively pursuing pledgers by asking for a minimum of $1 for each lap walked around the school’s track, although some pledgers offered more money per lap because students could do no more than 30 laps.
“It was definitely a school-wide accomplishment,” Lingerfelt said. “ Teachers, students and the school’s support staff all helped out. “It took several months of coordinating to figure out a plan how to communicate and to get the word out.”
As a reward for their work, the PTA is providing all students with a free t-shirt and inflatable during P.E.
“Next year, we can only imagine what the students will do,” Willis said. “For the first time trying such a big event, we couldn’t be more excited with the result. It took the entire Mill Creek family to do it. It was no way it could have been successful if anyone had come out.”
