­TULARE — Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) seniors at Hitchcock-Tulare High School and the school’s volleyball team raised money to create care packages for patients at the Avera Cancer Institute in Aberdeen.
“It was an idea for Pink Night,” said FCCLA instructor Ashley Johnson. “The girls wanted to focus not just on breast cancer, but all types of cancer. Do a cancer awareness thing.”
Senior FCCLA members Grace Erickson, Bailey Cole and Dawsyn Otto, organized a Cancer Awareness Night and Chinese Auction fundraiser held in September during a home volleyball game. They also sold bracelets printed with “No one fights alone.”
Prior to the start of the game each volleyball player presented a flower to someone in the crowd who had survived cancer, or to a family member of someone who lost their life to cancer.
“To get donations for the auction we asked all the girls on the volleyball team to donate a basket,” Erickson said. “We ended up with a lot of baskets and a lot of variety. We raised $1,400; that was a big success for us.”

Members of the FCCLA created 12 care packages — six for children and six for adults — that were delivered in late February to the Cancer Institute in Aberdeen. They also made one additional package for a young girl battling cancer in Miller.
Each care package contained lotion, chap stick, a pair of socks, a $10 gift card to Wal-Mart and a warm blanket. Children received a stuffed animal and color books, while adults were given a journal.
Students in seventh- and 11th-grade English also wrote letters that were included in each basket.
“It was actually really awesome,” Erickson said. “The night we had gotten back from delivering them, a junior whose aunt was just diagnosed got a basket and the letter inside was from him.
“We’ve actually gotten two (response) letters back from the hospital since then,” she added.
“I’ve learned that there are many ways out there to help a family or help those who have been suffering,” Cole added. “Not just cancer, but any burden.”
The Cancer Awareness Night and delivery of care packages to cancer patients is both a senior project and FCCLA STAR event for the three girls who organized the project.
“These girls did a chapter service project,” Johnson said. “The chapter members definitely helped out.”

courtesy photos

Shown at Cancer Awareness Night with tickets for a fundraising Chinese Auction are Hitchcock-Tulare School FCCLA members, from left, Dawsyn Otto, Grace Erickson and Bailey Cole. Above, the trio is shown with some of the care packages they created with funds raised for patients at the Avera Cancer Institute in Aberdeen.