Be Bold for Blue is a “day of giving” according to Aaron Sharp, the director of Annual Funds. A day where alumni are prompted to donate back to the school that gave them so much. This is the second year of the day and it was even more lucrative and enjoyable than last year.
Be Bold for Blue was not always the way it is today. Years before there used to be an entire month of ‘giving’ where alumni were encouraged to donate. Those organizing it made a lot of social media challenges like their dance competition to raise awareness and bring energy to the fund.
This year they had a little over 370 donors and raised over 100,00 dollars for the school. This was far over their goal of 300 donors. Cristina DiSabatino, assistant director of development, and who also played a crucial role in Be Bold for Blue Day said, “All the funds raised are for the annual fund. This could consist of budget relief, tech upgrades, athletic equipment, and even professional development opportunities for teachers. This fund encompasses a wide range of needs for the school.”
Student input was incredibly important for deciding what activities the school should conduct on a student-wide level. Aaron Sharp visited the upper school for both their agenda and business team meeting in which the student body discussed what kind of activities they would like to participate in for the event. The final decision, from feedback from the upper school, was to conduct a Penny Drive. Containers for each grade were placed in the arches. Students brought in spare change and small bills from home to compete against other grades. Sharp admitted that “the team always wanted to include something with competition within the grades to promote friendly competition.”
Pennies were added to the students’ class jar for points. Each penny was worth one point. Silver coins or paper bills were worth negative points according to their value. These were put in the jars of other classes with the goal of neutralizing the points they gained from their pennies. At the end of the week, on Be Bold for Blue day, when the class jars were full, those organizing it added up how many pennies were in each jar, and then subtracted the value of silver coins and bills in the same jar.
An exciting part of the Penny Drive was that there were two winning classes, one in the MS and one in the US. Once the pennies were counted and the silver coins and bills were subtracted, the winning class would receive Krispy Kreme donuts during April.
The data was incredibly interesting, The 11th grade brought in the most pennies in the Upper School, with 1,175 pennies. The only reason they did not win was the sabotage of the 20$ bill that was placed in their bin last minute. The 10th graders came in dead last but at least they won the contest of which grade had the most dollar bills in their container… That left the 9th grade with 232 pennies, and the 12th grade with 812 pennies. You would think that the seniors had this one in the bag but, the 12th graders had almost -2000 points, while the 9th grade only suffered a loss of -800 points, leaving the 9th grade with the dub and also the Krispy Kreme Donuts.
The students had a lot of fun competing in a low-stress and amusing game to celebrate Be Bold for Blue and together all seven grades raised over 580 dollars in coins! An anonymous junior commented that “I have a vendetta against 20 dollar bills and we should have gotten donuts for raising the most pennies.” To see the other side of this story an anonymous ninth grader said, “I feel very happy that we won and got donuts. Although, I am very confused because many people I talked to including myself didn’t donate any pennies.” The ninth graders won mainly because they had the fewest amount of silver coins in their jar.
All in all, Be Bold for Blue was incredibly successful this year and the school is very thankful to all the donors who contributed to their education and general well-being. The WFS community is looking forward to seeing what next year’s Be Bold for Blue fundraising day looks like!
