Many classrooms now have March of Dimes donation boxes for students to donate. The box as well as the FBLA’s website is used to help with research for the premature babies. “There is an online website, once you join the March of Dimes, and say your organization is going to help raise funds, then they give you a website and people can donate online,” Future Business Leaders of America advisor Paulette Johnson said. Photo by Owen Churchwell
By OWEN CHURCHWELL – Staff Writer
The March of Dimes’ March for Babies will we held on May 1.
A March of Dimes’ March for Babies is an annual march that raises money for women with complications during pregnancy. Starting May 1 at 6:00 p.m. the march will begin at Clarke Central High School and end at the Classic Center where more activities will take place. Registration for the march begins at 5:30 p.m.
“The March of Dimes is a foundation that helps parents who have problems in pregnancy, by providing them with assistance,” Future Business Leaders of America advisor Paulette Johnson said. “They also do a lot of research into problems that occur into pregnancy, so a lot of the March of Dimes’ money is spent on the research to help these people.”
The March for Babies march celebrates those who donated to the program. Johnson has personally been affected by the program and the march.
“The march is just this event to bring height into awareness, so everybody’s collecting money and people are getting to know about it, but it is like having this big celebration event,” Johnson said. “I have two grandsons and they were both born prematurely and one had to spend four week and the other two weeks in the hospital. The room that they were in had march of Dimes all over the place because they were the ones supporting that room. So, I know for a fact that it helps and saves lives.”
The FBLA team used lots of ways to raise money at CCHS for the March of Dimes program.
“Right now, I have some teachers with some boxes that collect dimes and whatever change people have in their pockets. There is an online website…that helps raise funds on (it),” Johnson said. “If people join the team (that does the March of Dimes) then that person individually can decide how much they want to raise and then that money goes to the team’s website.”
The March of Dimes is also considered a state competition, to see which program can raise the most money; however, the FBLA team is not participating in the state competition.
“We are not doing it in the state competition, we are just doing it as a collaboration project, but we could have used it as a state competition,” Johnson said.
According to FBLA public relations senior Mariah Isabell, she, as well as the rest of the team, have been promoting the event around the school to get the event publicized and believes that it has changed her life personally.
“I have made fliers to help promote the March of Dimes and, as a whole group, we have made a team page on our website that people can donate to,” Isabell said. “it has helped me become more aware of premature babies and what they go through, and that there isn’t a whole lot of funding to help them.”
