Busy, Crazy Times

I decided Friday that I was going to come home and hibernate for the weekend, and that's exactly what I did. Last week was our school's Spirit Week - each year we choose a charity and spend the entire week raising money for the charity. Wade Hampton High School, a rival school also chooses a charity and the two schools compete to raise the most money in that one week.

For the past several years our charity has been Cystinosis[sp?]. It is a little known disease that receives very little money for research. As I understand it, this illness causes the organs of the body to crystallize. There is no cure,only medication that has to be taken every four hours just to stay alive.

There is a little girl named Laura that lives in SC who has been the center of our school's project. We've watched her grow from four years old to eight. It is so amazing to see these high school kids love that little girl and cheer for her and treat her like a little princess.

Each year she and her mom come to school everyday the week of Wade Hampton Week
and the school basically goes completely crazy doing all sorts of activities to raise money. From early morning until late at night there are activities constantly, as well as during lunch.[we DO have classes] This year we raised - are you ready? - $106,000.00! IN one week, can you believe it? And the most exciting thing is that Laura's mom found a foundation, somewhere - and I don't know the name of it, that is going to match our money, dollar for dollar! So, $212,000.00 - Amazing! It would have been great if we could have counted the foundation's money too, then we would have won, but the fact that all that money will go to cystinosis research is wonderful. That money will fund two researchers for three years to study and search for a cure.

Wade Hampton raised $130,000.00. So, in ONE WEEK, two schools just a few miles apart, basically in the same community, raised $236,000.00. It's just amazing. All of the students get involved and excited and open their hearts to this little girl and empty their pockets.

There is a video on U Tube of our principal dancing at the pep rally, well, attempting to dance. There is this dance called Soldier Boy [?] that all the kids are doing, and he said he would dance is they could raise $100 right there in the pep rally, and they did.

Oh, and I forgot to mention - back in September my students had sold $11,000.00 worth of cookie dough, frozen pizza and frozen cheesecakes - which the company decided to deliver this Thursday? Right in the middle of Wade Hampton Week. So I had parents and kids sorting and checking out orders for our choral fundraiser until after 5:00 in the afternoon.

So, I was exhausted, because basically the kids were WILD all week. I did nothing except sleep, read, and stitch this weekend, mostly sleep. It was great. I can't say that I feel rested, but better than I did on Friday.

This week we have SC All-State Chorus Auditions. I am taking 164 to audition but will have another try-out Tuesday to weed out any who still don't know their part. If one person messes up, it can throw off the entire quintet. They have to learn Pergolesi's Allelia in 5 parts and perform it in quintets, one to a part, for five judges. If they pass that portion of the audition, they then go one at a time into another room and sight-read eight measures for another judge. The auditions are Thursday in Columbia - we will have to leave at 7:30 AM to be there for our assigned time.

Then Thursday afternoon we have a rehearsal for our concert on Monday night. Each year, we sponsor the East Greenville Invitational Choral Festival. WE invite 6 other choirs to perform two songs each, and then we do a combined number at the end of the concert. My concert choir meets in two periods, so we are practicing together after school. Combined there are 93 in the choir. I am so excited about the choir this year, they are working so hard and are already sounding wonderful. I wish ya'll could hear them! The concert is next Monday night, Nov. 5 at Taylors First Baptist Church in Taylors.

So, next week is actually going to be crazy for me too - I hadn't realized it until I wrote all of this. ACK!!

Well, this hasn't been about stitching or knitting, but it is my life right now, so... The good news is, that I will get to stitch [or knit] all the way to and from auditions on Thursday.

Happy Stitching!
Jane