Most volleyball matches are played to earn a victory, but at Clarkston High School March 28, teams of students and staff from throughout the district worked to raise money for cancer research.
The fourth annual Staff versus Student Volleyball Tournament, teamed with district-wide Show Your Spirit Day nearly two weeks earlier, raised $4,200 for The V Foundation.
The foundation, created in 1993 and named for former men’s college basketball coach Jim Valvano, has raised more than $60 million in funds for cancer research, according to the foundation.
This year’s tournament featured a cancer memorial wall along the east side of the gym, with remembrances of family members lost to cancer.
Aaron Dobson, advisor of the CHS LEAD program, which along with the Blue and Gold Clubs from CHS and Clarkston Junior High School sponsored the event, said the wall brought home the reality of the disease.
‘It’s a way for us to show how cancer touches all of us and we need to unite as a community to battle this.?
LEAD helped include students with ‘spirit? day. Students were allowed to wear their favorite team’s apparel at school in exchange for donations to the foundation.
Additionally, the group arranged the viewing of Valvano’s emotional March 1993 address at the first ESPY Awards ceremony, just months before cancer claimed his life.
In the nearly 10-minute speech, Valvano, a recipient of the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanity Award, announced the creation of the foundation in cooperation with ESPN.
‘It was really inspirational in the respect that it shows us that we need to fight (cancer),? Dobson said.
‘We want them to know everyone who battles cancer is a hero.
‘We’re teaching our students to be altruistic on a national level.?
In its inception, the volleyball tournament’s purpose was to raise school spirit. In its sophomore year, the tourney raised money for a local family battling cancer. Last year the decision was made that the money raised would go to a national organization, which was more encompassing for everyone, Dobson said.
The tournament featured eight teams of students and eight more with teachers in head-to-head matches. Team orange, with CJHS faculty, won the tournament which saw the first team of members from the Clarkston Community Schools’Board of Education.
Superintendent Al Roberts said it was the members? pleasure to take part in the fundraiser.
‘All of us felt the cause was great (as well as) the teacher organization and leadership. We wanted to support them. They put it together and that was the least we could do,? Roberts said.
For pictures of the night’s event, see page A20.
Visit http://www.youtube.com to view the speech and http://www.jimmyv.org for more information.