Photo by Amy Cherry
Elk County Catholic sophomores Rachael Rupprecht and Danielle Hodgdon are shown hanging Relay For Life die-cuts which students purchased to support the American Cancer Society event. The pair are organizing a Relay for Life team for the second consecutive year.

By Amy Cherry

Staff Writer

Elk County Catholic sophomores Danielle Hodgdon and Rachael Rupprecht are stepping in the right direction as they are ramping up their efforts to raise money for the upcoming American Cancer Society of Elk and Cameron Counties Relay for Life taking place on June 11 and 12 at the Fox Township Community Park.
The ambitious 15-year-olds have once again established a relay team of fellow classmates, organized fundraisers, secured sponsors, planned activities for their team’s booth, attended event meetings and most importantly have spread the word about cancer awareness.
Last year the pair coordinated a team of 16 of their classmates just one month before the event. In that short amount of time the team succeeded in raising $1,200.
“We want to raise $3,000 this year and we’re already a little more than halfway there,” stated Rupprecht. “The Relay makes a huge difference in people’s lives. It’s fun to us but the money is for a really good cause and you don’t really know how important it is until you get involved and see the really important changes that you can make in peoples lives.”
Prior to their fundraising efforts which they began in October, the girls secured team sponsors including Dairy Queen, where Hodgdon works, along with Elk County Catholic.
“Dairy Queen has been awesome to us. They bought our team’s t-shirts, let us do a car wash there last year and even brought blizzards to us when we were at the Relay,” Hodgdon said.
Elk County Catholic High School Principal Sandy Florig has also been a big supporter of the girls' efforts, allowing them to conduct numerous fundraisers in school.
“They have great initiative. They have been so mature about approaching me and reminding me about things. They’ve been very busy,” Florig said. “There is hardly a person on Earth who has not been touched by cancer.”
Their first fundraiser took place in October when they sold Relay for Life die-cuts during lunch. These were then displayed on a wall in the cafeteria.
Next they sold homemade beaded bracelets in various colors, each representing a different type of cancer which the girls researched prior to making them. Among the wide variety of bracelets many featured a silver charm inscribed with words such as “hope”, “faith”, “love” and “made with love”. They also took special orders and had a bracelet-making party with their teammates where they made between 200 to 300 bracelets.
In addition to selling the bracelets in school they also sold them at the Johnsonburg Community Christmas Craft Show where they made $200. They are currently looking into future craft shows to sell their handmade jewelry, where Rupprecht may add some of her matching necklaces and earrings. Florig encouraged the girls to sell them at the school’s upcoming Mother’s Day Dinner as well.
“We made them for everyone, girls and guys,” Rupprecht said.
The pair also took to the kitchen where they made several items which they sold out of during a bake sale at St. Leo’s Elementary in Ridgway, where Hodgdon attended school.
The girls also coordinated a dress down day at both ECC and St. Leo’s where students paid $1 to wear casual attire to school for a day. They encouraged their fellow students to wear purple, the official color of the American Cancer Society. Prior to the dress down day they sold over 100 purple t-shirts with a lime green design “ECC Walks This Relay” and managed to raise over $400 between both schools.
Additional fundraising plans include donation cans at Dairy Queen, hosting a second bake sale, writing letters to their family and friends requesting donations, passing out donation cards to their team members who collect funds then mark off the specific amount on the card, once the card is full they should have collected $100 each. They also plan to sell their bracelets and baked goods during the Relay.
Joining Hodgdon and Rupprecht at the Relay this year are their teammates, Lauren Rupprecht, Rachael’s younger sister, Dylan Hodgdon, Danielle’s younger brother, Adam Lovenduski, a student at St. Marys Catholic Middle School, Michael Lovenduski, Quirin Riddle, Rebecca Gleixner, Hali Schloder, Anna Wingard, Ryan Jacobs, Nick Cheatle, Jared Heiberger, Andy Frey and Maria Tettis, all ECC sophomores.
Both added that this year they have even more reason to participate in the Relay as they recently found out one of their teammates has pre-cancer cells lining the inside of his/her stomach.
“This makes it a huge motivator,” Rupprecht said. “We even bought more periwinkle beads, which is the color for stomach cancer, to make more bracelets because everyone’s requesting that kind.”
In April representatives from the American Cancer Society are presenting information to area high school students about the Relay for Life, encouraging them to participate in the event. This event was what sparked Hodgdon and Rupprecht to become involved in the Relay as both have grandparents who were effected by the disease.
“I want to do it again because it made my parents so happy. It keeps me really motivated,” Hodgdon said. “Our parents were really proud of us for raising all that money because it was all us. We did all the money, organizing, getting a spot, going to the meetings,”
‘We get so many compliments from people we don’t know, they’re excited to hear about how much money we raised. My grandpa gave me a big hug and talked to me about it. He was happy I did it, partly because of him and my grandma as well. He was honored I did it because of him,” added Rupprecht.
Both sets of their parents chaperoned the students during last year’s Relay. Hodgdon is the daughter of Theresa and Jim of Dagus Mines and Rupprecht is the daughter of Jo and Lynnette of St. Marys.
The event allowed the students the opportunity to meet new people and new teams.
Hodgdon said they were very grateful to Patty Pfeufer who paid their team’s booth fee this year.
“People take us a lot more seriously since we have gone to the meetings,” Hodgdon said. “I’d rather do relay stuff than homework. We hope it goes well this year.”