Student Dance-a-Thon Next Week Benefits Leukemia Patient

By Jonathan Weaver

Kittanning Senior High students will literally be dancing until dawn next weekend in the school’s gymnasium.
Not as a precursor to the senior prom this May, but to raise money and support through a 10-hour dance-a-thon for one of their own Wildcats.

Health Teacher Cindi Lindahl has been on-leave this school year to take care of her three-year-old son, James, who is battling leukemia. Student Council (STUCO) members also want to help out the beloved teacher and organized “Jamming for James” Community Service Chair and Event Co-Chair Roxanne Crissman said.

“She was a really good teacher – I know people from past years still talk about her. They were disappointed they didn’t have her this year. When her son got sick, we decided we were going to do something for him,” Crissman said. “We did that with KHS Cares (monthly fundraising events in the school), but we also brought in our dance-a-thon to take care of him, sort-of.

Every year, we raise a lot of money, so we thought ‘What would be better than to give that money to a teacher’s kid, the people who helped us learn?”

Crissman – who co-chairs the event with fellow Junior Summer Young – is also a team captain for the 10-hour event that runs from 9PM Friday, March 28 until 7AM the next day.

Student Council President Erick Shiring is also a team captain next weekend and has attended the past three annual events. Last year, proceeds benefited the Four Diamonds Fund, but Shiring said community support was highest two years ago during “Ca-Dance” – a dance-a-thon that was held for then-seven-year-old leukemia patient Cadence Charmello of West Kittanning.

“Ca-Dance raised the most money so far. (Students) raised over $7,000 – we’re hoping to beat that,” Shiring said. “Our goal is $10,000.”

Regardless if they are on a team, event organizers hope 100 students take the pledge to raise $100 toward the Lindahl Family.

Approximately 150 students are already registered.

Crissman and Young hope to inspire more donations through more activity at the event with things such as inflatables and a hypnotist.

“Our goal is to give them enough activities that they won’t want to sleep,” Shiring said.

Aesthetic Coordinator Gabby Cravener doesn’t consider herself an artist, but designed the T-shirts students who registered will receive next weekend.

“I felt I needed to contribute somehow,” Cravener said. “The whole dance-a-thon is race car-themed, so I based the T-shirts off the race car theme: so it has checkered flags, a race car and the phrase “On the Right Track.”
The three students have planned all this while rehearsing for the upcoming spring musical “Alice in Wonderland” – which will debut April 4.

Crissman and Cravener said they had no trouble balancing out the workload.

“You just do whatever you can when you can because between (musical) and schoolwork, we’re really busy. But it’s all work it,” Crissman said.

Shiring is proud of the students involved.

“The event chairs are doing absolutely fantastic. This is the most-difficult event to plan because you have to keep people entertained for 10 hours (but) they have been fantastic getting as many new activities as possible and being thorough in not only the logistics of food and music, but all the extra stuff that can go into it to make it better,” Shiring said.

Community donations were also received to go toward event expenses. Crissman said any money left over will go toward the Lindahl Family.

“You can tell the community supports us,” Shiring said. “That’s the benefit of being in a small town- when everyone knows each other, everyone wants to help each other out.”

STUCO has also sold blue rubber band bracelets for $1 that are inscribed “For James” during the past few weeks. Student response is so great that bracelets are expected to be sold out next week.

Lindahl and James are not expected to be able to attend due to the toddler’s leukemia treatments, but Lindahl has told student leaders she is grateful for their efforts.

No Comments

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.