The Cazenovia High School Academic Decathlon Team will be able to travel to Minnesota to compete in the national AD competition this week, thanks to their own effective fundraising work and numerous donations from local residents, but especially because of two major donations received last week from two community groups.
The Cazenovia United Teacher’s Union and the Cazenovia Lions Club both came forward Friday, April 19, with large donations without which the team would have been unable to afford attendance at the competition. These gifts, plus the team’s final raffle fundraiser Saturday, April 20, put the students over the top of their fundraising goal, allowing them to travel to Minneapolis to compete.
“It was so great the community stepped up — at first it seemed like a daunting task,” said AD team advisor Marty Kelly.
The Cazenovia High School AD Team won the New York state AD title on March 16 — the eighth time in nine years they had done so — however, when they returned home from that competition they learned the school district did not have the funds to pay for the trip to the national competition in Minnesota. While the district had sponsored the airfare and hotel costs for the team’s previous seven trips, this year’s finances were too tight.
The team needed to raise $6,500 for airfare, hotel, shuttle service and some meals, Kelly said. The district would pay for the two team advisors, Kelly and Christie Brennock, to go as chaperones.
For the past month, the AD team has been holding numerous fundraising events in order to raise the necessary money to compete at nationals. Through these fundraisers and numerous donations from local residents, the team had raised about enough for airfare, but not enough to cover hotel or any other costs.
Last week, the Cazenovia United Teacher’s Union donated $2,000 to cover the students’ hotel rooms, while the Cazenovia Lions Club donated $1,000 to the team’s general travel fund.
“We’re very proud of you and we realize how hard you must work, especially to win eight [the state competition] of the last nine years,” said Lions Club member Tom Long, during a brief ceremony April 19 where he and fellow club member Allan Youngs, presented the $1,000 check to the team. “We thought you deserved some support.”
“These [donations] put us to the point where we really knew the trip was going to happen,” Kelly said. “We were pretty excited.”
The Cazenovia High School Academic Decathlon Team and their two advisors will travel to Minneapolis this week for the competition, which takes place April 24 through 27.
Jason Emerson is editor of the Cazenovia Republican. He can be reached at [email protected].
