GPS and McCallie students raised $25,000 for cancer research through Mission: Remission.
McCallie and GPS students had a goal of raising $20,000 for cancer research and the combined student bodies, through the schools’ second annual Mission: Remission project, will be donating $25,000 to local organizations working to find a cure for cancer. Last year’s total was nearly $15,000.
“We have all been impacted by a loved one or a friend who has battled cancer,” senior day student Ralston Hartness said. “We try to give to foundations that members of the McCallie and GPS communities have been affected by.”
Funds were raised through official Mission: Remission T-shirt sales at the schools, and club, team, organization, student and family donations.
Student groups spent $100 to get their respective group’s name on the back of the shirt, and that effort raised more than $3,000. Nearly 95 percent of McCallie students purchased a T-shirt, raising another $8,600.
McCallie’s Middle School raised nearly $1,500 by accepting students’ donations. The three teachers whose classroom jars generated the most money got a pie thrown in their face by a student.
Around 1,800 students from the two schools united for a 2.7-mile walk to raise awareness for the cause. The march started at the GPS campus and took the students through Chattanooga’s North Shore, across the Walnut Street Bridge, around the Tennessee Aquarium, up the twisting walkway toward Hunter Art Museum and the Art District and back across the Bridge before returning to GPS.
Student Councils from both schools organized the event and distribute the collected funds to a variety of charitable and research organizations at a later date.