Stuco raises money for Australia bushfires

Stuco+raises+money+for+Australia+bushfires

Australia has recently been impacted by devastating bushfires that will cost them billions of dollars to repair wildfire habitats, pay volunteers and workers and rehabilitate animals back to health. The high school student council decided to raise money for volunteer firefighters who are risking their lives to help Australians in their time of need.

In order to do so, they took orders for T-shirts and sent all proceeds to help volunteer firefighters. The Australia fundraiser was organized by sponsor Callie Bartelson and junior and vice president Sadie Schmanke. 

“I feel like teenagers seem to have strong opinions about certain things but don’t want to make the change, and I wanted to step up to make the difference,” Schmanke said. 

With the T-shirt idea, Schmanke had to come up with a design that people would want to purchase. This being a stressful process, she wanted input from other people. 

“I had thought of ideas with my family and asked Ms. Long to make a rough draft, and we kept messing with the design ‘til we got something that we liked,” she said. 

After all the hard work was done, Stuco announced the T-shirt sales in the morning announcements. With no set money goal, they strived to get enough just to make the difference that Schmanke was aiming for. 

“My favorite part about the shirt was that the words were confined to the true meaning of the shirts, which was the country of Australia,” art teacher Whitney Long said. 

The students were asked to wear the shirts to the Homecoming game on Feb. 14 to show their support to Australia. 

“My favorite part about the shirts were that the design was thought out and supported a good cause,” senior and Stuco president Neal Zoglmann said.