DARE Week raises funds for Rocha family
photo by Lukas Goodwin
Leadership teacher Sarah Jarem makes the final changes to her classes’ donations. She was tracking all of them throughout DARE Week.
The annual DARE Week fundraiser was especially significant this year, as all funds will be donated to vice principal Angel and ESE teacher Patrick Rocha, whose daughter and parents were hospitalized after a serious car accident. DARE Week ran from Monday, Feb. 4 to Friday, Feb. 8, and teachers raised funds by setting monetary goals for their classes to reach. If students were able to raise the specified amount by the end of the week, the teacher would do the dare or give the reward they had promised.
In the past, DARE Week funds have raised money for Tundrathon Dance Marathon, which is part of the Children’s Miracle Network. But this year, after the Rochas’ car accident on East Colonial Drive on Jan. 4, the change made sense.
“The Rochas are going through some major hardships,” Leadership teacher Sarah Jarem said, who led DARE Week alongside fellow leadership teacher Kari Miller. “We decided it would be nice to have Huskies help out fellow Huskies.”
Teachers set dares they knew would motivate students to donate. While the majority of the staff made simple goals such as extra credit, a free homework pass or a movie day, some took a different approach.
Social studies and science teachers Matt and Brandi Malkovich told their students that if they reached their shared goal of $120, the two would trade classes for a day, meaning Brandi would take over Matt’s government classes and Matt would teach biology.
English teacher Samantha Richardson promised her students that if they raised $1,000, they would not have to annotate the last two sections in The Life of Pi. By the end of the week, her classes had brought in about $1,050, partially due to her head start the week before. Similarly, Spanish teacher Yvette Rhode raised roughly $600 the week before, since she knew she would not be in school during the official week.
“We just thought, ‘What can we do that’s close to the Hagerty community?’” senior Anna Wimberly, who helped organize DARE Week in her leadership class, said. “After what happened to the Rocha family, we just knew we needed to support them as much as we possibly can.”
By the end of DARE Week, the school raised a total amount of approximately $10,800. More donations are expected to continue until Tuesday, Feb. 12.
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