The Crothersville High School English Club raised $900 for the American Cancer Society through its Night of Colors fundraiser. From left are club officers Clayton McIntosh, Gavin Wiesman, Cash Sawyer, Elayna Ord, Dirk Crater, Addison Davis and Destiny Lawrence.
Zach Spicer | The Tribune
CROTHERSVILLE — Night of Colors has become a tradition for Crothersville Community Schools.
T-shirts representing the various colors of types of cancer are sold to students, staff and the community, and those are worn by players, coaches, cheerleaders and fans at a Crothersville High School boys basketball game. A silent auction also is conducted that night.
Money raised goes to the American Cancer Society. That’s the leading cancer-fighting organization with a vision of ending cancer as we know it for everyone and is the only organization working to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research and patient support to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat and survive cancer, according to cancer.org.
This year’s effort at Crothersville, sponsored by the CHS English Club, set a record with $900 raised for ACS.
“Our goal was $500, so they did really well,” said Tammy Robbins, the club’s sponsor. “Cash Sawyer, he’s our treasurer. I had him counting money, and he was really surprised.”
When the officers heard the total, they were pleasantly surprised, too.
“Grateful that the community came together to raise that much money for a really good cause,” Dirk Crater said.
Club President Elayna Ord said they promoted T-shirt sales at the school via flyers and announcements.
“We want most of the student body to buy them,” she said.
Robbins said the shirts were made by local business Full Court Press Apparel.
“Lots of families don’t just buy shirts for their kids. They buy shirts for their whole family,” she said. “In the stands, there were a lot of people wearing their cancer shirts that night.”
The silent auction consisted of themed baskets made by Crothersville Elementary School classes. There was one each from preschool, kindergarten, first grade, fourth grade and fifth grade classes.
Bids were made during the Feb. 10 home game against Seven Oaks Classical. The fifth grade basket with a Super Bowl snack basket theme brought in the most money, so that class won a cupcake party.
In the past, Robbins said cancer survivors were recognized during the game, but this year, halftime festivities also included Senior Night and a Crothersville Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony, so time was limited.
The club, however, was glad to be able to do the fundraiser this year after not being able to the past three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Besides Night of Colors, the club organizes several activities throughout the school year.
Around Halloween, the club sponsored a costume contest. In December, members conducted a bake sale to raise money to buy books for the school library. That resulted in 31 books donated.
“I picked the books this time, but the English Club members request which books they like to see in the library, and then I go from the reading list,” Robbins said. “Because of their requests, we’ve actually had more teen novels added and graphic novels.”
In April, the club will sponsor the Spilling the Ink Writing Competition, where students can submit poems, short stories and essays.
“Instead of having me or any teachers evaluate the papers, the club members, I get five people to read that and they score it 1 to 10, and it’s their basis on whether they liked it, what they thought about punctuation,” Robbins said. “They just score it, and I take the mathematical average. I omit names and put numbers so they don’t know who wrote it. The club members are the judges.”