By Andrew Martins
Staff Writer
PLUMSTED – The excitement of watching administrators and teachers take a pie to the face brought dozens of pupils at the New Egypt Middle School to a frenzy as the youngsters celebrated the way they exceeded a fundraising goal in the fight against cancer.
The pupils’ excitement, which reverberated through the school’s halls on May 6, was the exclamation point to the three-week Coins for the Cause fundraising campaign.
Coins for the Cause was created by the Student Council with guidance from teachers Laura Occiuzzo and Gabrielle Chapman. The organizers reported that the fundraising effort raised $2,878.
Occiuzzo said the idea for the fundraiser came about when New Egypt High School student Anthony Rinaldi, 16, was diagnosed with Stage 4 Hodgkin’s lymphoma earlier this year.
Since Anthony was diagnosed with lymphoma, the school district has held multiple fundraisers to support him and his family, including a basketball tournament at the high school and the sale of special T-shirts and bracelets.
In an attempt to cover some of the financial costs that a battle with cancer can bring, teachers at the middle school collected spare change from their pupils in a can that was placed at the front of each classroom.
To get the children invested in the fundraiser, the teachers said they set lofty goals and rewards, including taking a pie in the face during an assembly if an average of more than $5 per student was raised.
The class with the biggest per student average donation, about $32.50 per student in Kelly Buskey’s sixth grade class, will receive a donut and bagel party.
But the prize that Principal Andrea Caldes said she did not expect the pupils to earn was getting to watch her and Vice Principal Tara Nesbihal receive a cream pie in the face if they met or exceeded the goal of raising a total of $2,500.
“To be quite honest, when I agreed to be pied if the students met their goal, I was thinking ‘what are the chances?’ … I should have known better because these students are awesome,” Caldes said. “For them to be able to raise that much money in that short amount of time just says it all.”
With those stakes on the line, spare change began pouring in from the pupils with the approval of their parents and guardians. Within 10 days, Occiuzzo said, more than $1,950 in coins was collected.
“It was amazing,” Occiuzzo said. “This just shows how much our students care.”
In the end, $720 was donated to the Rinaldi family and $2,158 was donated to the American Cancer Society during the 2016 New Egypt Relay for Life event on May 14.
“The kids are already talking about this (fundraiser) for next year,” Chapman said. “The eighth-graders were the ones who got to pie the teachers, so now we have seventh-graders saying, ‘Oh, next year we get to do that.’ ”
For Anthony’s mother, Debra, the show of support from New Egypt High School and the entire Plumsted Township School District has been a boost for her son, who recently had his final chemotherapy treatment.
“For my family, it has been great to have this kind of support because I think it was important for us just to help us get through all of this. It was overwhelming,” Rinaldi said. “I could not be happier that we are in this town. I did not realize how much Anthony is loved by so many people.”
