Helping others to help yourself.

This is one of the themes of the fundraising efforts that Cotter students participate in throughout Lent for Catholic Relief Services.

Rice Bowl is a program Catholic Relief Services runs annually during Lent. The purpose of the program is to serve others and raise money to help those who are hungry around the world. Cotter has been working with Rice Bowl for many years, but has focused a more consistent effort towards it over the past 15 years. Students have been very generous in giving to Rice Bowl.

Classroom and home collections are run by the religion department at Cotter. Students are able to take home a paper rice bowl, and, with their family, donate to it, or they may also give to the cause at school.

Penny Wars played a major role in the Rice Bowl program, raising over $900 this year. The freshman and seniors had a friendly competition going on.  They alternately held the lead in giving and eventually the seniors gave the most. There were daily reminders on the announcements of who was in the lead, which helped spur giving.  As an extra incentive the class that donated the most money received Bloedow’s donuts (after Lent of course!), which encouraged  students to give.

A new twist this year was that the collection jars were left out all day for the students to put money in. Last year, the money was only out for a certain amount of time. This approach seemed to have work as the giving was up a lot this year.

Donut Day was a Real Time Project that was ran by Eli Fletcher and Steven Pilarski which raised $238. There was a pre-order of Bloedow’s donuts and everyone was charged a little extra, $2 per donut, so the extra money collected could be donated to Rice Bowl.

The volleyball tournament and bake sale were run through National Honor Society. There was a Thursday evening volleyball tournament with many teams and was very fun to all of the students. It was $5 per person to attend and was a great way to raise money. The bake sale that accompanied it also did well.

Mrs. Corcoran has been Cotter’s point person on these projects. Her job is to oversee, encourage, and make sure things go smoothly with the students. She has done a great job to make everything happen in a fun, productive, and successful way. All together, Cotter raised $1,859 for the Rice Bowl in Lent of 2022.