Crystal Lake South High School, Pink Out for Breast Cancer
Crystal Lake South High School, Crystal Lake, IL
Project: Pink Out for Breast Cancer
Advisers: Brian Adcock and Lori Ratliff
When the Crystal Lake South High School chapter of NHS began this year’s service project, the Pink Out, they had simple objectives: get every student at the high school to wear a pink t-shirt to a football game and fill the stands with pink, raise money through the sale of these shirts for research and prevention of breast cancer, and spread breast cancer awareness. To accomplish this, the members felt it was important to get as much of the school involved as possible.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so they chose a Friday night home game in October to “pink-out.” Plans included selling pink t-shirts for $10 to students and the community. In order to get the word out to the community, they began by selling shirts to parents on parent night, which took place in mid-September. Veteran members of NHS were asked to sell shirts during their lunch hours. To raise awareness among the student body, other NHS members made signs and posted them around the building and created a Facebook group to spread the word.
Because of the widespread excitement for the upcoming event, other clubs and sports teams in the school involved themselves as well. For example, all 40 dancers on the Varsity and Junior Varsity Pom squads used pink and silver poms-poms, and wore their “Pink-Out” shirts for their performance the night of the Pink-Out. The members of the marching band all decorated their instruments with pink streamers, and the seniors all wore pink capes. The Color Guard used pink flags, and all 40 cheerleaders wore their “Pink-Out” shirts.
Even the football team incorporated pink into their uniforms. Twenty-five players taped their ankles and shoes with hot pink tape, while all 60 players put a breast cancer ribbon sticker on their helmets. Parents and other fans generously gave donations, and the opposing team was very generous with their donations as well. The chapter sold about 850 shirts to students, faculty, and parents and raised about $4,000, double the amount they initially hoped to raise.
They were able to donate $2,000 to the McHenry County Breast Cancer Task Force, and the other $2,000 to Susan G. Komen. Presenting these checks reaffirmed their sense of accomplishment. When the project was originally announced they received a tremendous, compassionate response, and from there, the participation grew. Seeing this support for the cause was one way to demonstrate how much awareness was raised.
The month of October at Crystal Lake South High School was truly dedicated to breast cancer avareness. Through this experience, these students learned that nothing is unreachable! As a community, Crystal Lake South has touched and improved the lives of many women who suffer from this disease. This event not only brought the school together, but also helped save lives.