PSC’s Feast or Famine fundraiser succeeded by leaps and bounds.
Organized by the Humanitarian Club at Ponoka Secondary Campus, the fundraising event saw a number of students and teachers, along with a few local celebrities ‘arrested’ and charged then given the opportunity to ‘make bail’ for their release. Those who landed in jail used the time behind bars to contact friends, family, colleagues or whoever else they could reach by phone to garner enough donations to secure their release.
This year’s event brought in $9,700, far exceeding the goal of $2,000, and beat the $7,000 total from last year.
All of the money raised will be going to the charity, A Better World Canada, to support a school construction project in Tulwap, Kenya.
A pair of students that helped organize the event for the club — Kimberly Turner and Melissa Morris — hoped that by making the event larger, with more people ‘arrested’ would make it a greater success.
“We had about 20 teams and the hope was we could reach our goal,” said Morris. “And it turned out to be far easier by holding it in the commons area. That made it more visible and a lot of other students were hanging around, so it was easy to ask for a donation.”
Turner added kids would simply hand over five or 10 dollars, but there were also some that donated $20 or $30.
“We all thought with the way the economy has been lately that it would be a lot harder, but this shows that the kids are still in a giving mood,” she said.
Among the others tossed behind bars were Ponoka RCMP detachment commander Staff Sgt. Mike Numan and Dennis Jones, the Regional Fire Chief for Ponoka County. Both men spent the good part of the morning on their cell phones looking for people’s support, with Numan noting he wasn’t turned down on any of his calls.
“The people know it’s for a good cause and any amount $10 or over got them a tax receipt,” he said.
“Though I also know that I’m going to get a call back when the ones I called get hit with something similar,” he joked.