New this fall at Tallmadge High School, at least three fundraisers have decided to help Tallmadge Christmas Families with their proceeds.

 One of the fundraisers is being put together by DECA. The members are running a fundraiser to sell Homecoming apparel. The sale started last week, with all proceeds being donated to Tallmadge Christmas Families.

“[The process has been] different this year due to the fact that we aren’t marketing the apparel to be worn to the football game. We decided to go with the theme of all of the events happening for Homecoming Week,” DECA advisor and teacher Lisa Haller said.

Orders for the Homecoming apparel are due by today, Oct. 12 with ordering being placed directly on the Ritchies Sporting Goods website.

Another fundraiser is 31 days of Thirty-One. Teacher and junior class advisor Arene Staszak facilitates the fundraiser. She keeps it organized and pushes the ticket sales. Junior Class Executive Board members, as well as other class exec boards, sell the tickets.

“The junior class does this fundraiser every year to help keep Prom cost down for our students. The more we fundraise, the less we have to charge. This year is different because we have money left over from last year, so instead we will help out the Student Senate and give the money to Christmas Families,” Staszak said. “The pandemic makes it hard to raise money (harder for people and business to make donations), so the class advisors thought it would make sense for us to help this cause to supplement losses due to the pandemic.” 

The Thirty-One fundraiser has raised over $1500 to donate to Christmas Families.  They will also be donating Thirty-One products to be given to families as part of the program.

Another fundraiser beginning this week is RocketRaise, organized by Interact Club and Leaders In Action in collaboration with Student Senate that is all online. All proceeds will be donated to THS for Christmas Families.  The goal is to obtain $5,000 in donations of either money or items.

“Interact Club is a service group here at THS. We decided to help raise money for Christmas Families this fall because we realized the need this season may be greater than in seasons in the past because of the pandemic,” Interact advisor Kelli Christopher said.  “We were working on some things on our own but had to put those on hold because of the current restrictions on in-person activities.”

With the COVID-19 pandemic, fundraising has become different from the way it used to be. For Student Senate advisor and teacher Anna Blasko, it is another obstacle for her to get around.

“We always need to be creative and think outside the box to come up with new and fun fundraising events. This year is no different, but we also need to think of fundraising we can do [to keep] following social distance guidelines,” Blasko said.

Blasko plans to keep online events going where students, parents and the Tallmadge community can get involved so that she and the Student Senate may help the community.

Blasko said, “Student Senate has always worked with Christmas Families. It is one of our favorite projects we do and it typically incorporates our fall schedule of events. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work with so many other groups. Our hope is to make this bigger than before and help to reach more families who may need help this Christmas.” 

If you are interested in donating to RocketRaise, the link is: https://www.rocketraise.com/rr/RRGrpLanding?SL=1-0000369522-996&utm_source=webref&utm_medium=groupsharelink&utm_campaign=groupsharelink

If you are interested in donating to Christmas Families, please contact advisor Anna Blasko at [email protected]

To order Homecoming Spirit Wear (due Oct. 12), please follow this link: http://www.ritchiessports.com/shop/2020tallmadgehomecoming