Coal City Community Unit School District 1 issued the following announcement on Feb. 23.
The Coal City Middle School Student Council held a month-long fundraiser for the Kaysen VandeWerken family from January 25 to February 22, 2021.
Realizing the challenges the VandeWerkens were facing during an already upside down year from the pandemic, the school wanted to do something to show support for Calleigh, a current 8th grader, and her family as they wait for her sister, Kaysen, to undergo a critical medical procedure. Kaysen is currently awaiting her 2nd heart transplant from the Pediatric Transplant Program at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. Throughout this school year, Kaysen’s dad, Steve, Calleigh, and 5th-grade brother, Talan, have stayed close to home to continue with school and daily activities while Kaysen and her mom, Megan, wait in the city.
During the Warriors Karing for Kaysen month, the middle school halls and common areas were decorated by student council members with “Kaysen hearts”. The first three weeks of the month-long event, involved grade-level competitions to see which student group could raise the most money for the week. Week one was a coin collection contest: Change for Kaysen’s Change of Heart. Schoolwide the students brought in over $905.00 in change, but eighth-graders raised the largest amount of money that week and won the first week’s competition.
Week two’s grade level challenge was a button selling campaign: Buttons for Brave Kaysen. Over 190 buttons were sold at $1 apiece. Seventh graders won that week’s contest- inching out 8th grade by just a couple of button purchases.
The final week’s challenge was Hats for Hearts which allowed students to pay $1 to wear a hat at the end of the week. Sixth graders came back after two weeks of defeat to win the final competition with the largest amount of hat passes sold.
All grade levels came together in the fourth week to show love and support for Kaysen and her family by wearing “Kourageous Kaysen” and “Karing for Kaysen” spirit wear on Friday, February 19th. The “Karing for Kaysen” spirit wear logo resulted from a student logo design contest sponsored by the CCMS Student Council. Kaysen, herself, selected the winning design created by 8th-grade student Vincenzo Mugnolo from all the students’ submissions. Simian Brothers Creative out of Morris took Vincenzo’s artwork and recreated it on over 200 t-shirts and sweatshirts sold via an online store made available on the CCMS webpage.
In addition to the students’ contests, CCMS staff had their own Jeans Monday fundraiser to help chip in. Staff members paid $5 per Monday to wear jeans to school each Monday that school was in attendance between February 1- February 22.
Ms. Swink, the student council sponsor, stated, “I am extremely grateful to our students, our students’ parents, and our staff for their generosity which allowed us to present the VandeWerken family a check for $2,722.75. We sincerely hope that this financial contribution can somehow ease the challenges the VandeWerken family will continue to face until Kaysen gets her new heart.”
Original source can be found here.
Source: Coal City Community Unit School District 1
Alerts Sign-up