Students raise cash to help fight childhood cancer

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Not that a party needs a better reason than pizza and friends to happen, but a pizza party held at Fairview Elementary School on Friday, March 24, had a special reason and it happened in the third-grade class of teacher Deana Scura.

For the second year in a row, Fairview Elementary students collected spare change to donate to Fighting Children’s Cancer Foundation which financially assists families of children battling cancer.

The collection was initiated last year by Milly Realz to help the organization that helped her family while her daughter, Jordan Williams, a student in Scura’s class, was undergoing therapy for a form of leukemia.

For the second year in a row, it was the homeroom classmates of Jordan who collected the most money with the foundation providing the pizza.

Jordan had been diagnosed Feb. 16, 2015, three days before her 7th birthday. She was immediately hospitalized for three weeks, undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoblastic leukemia. She received her treatments at Goryeb Children’s Hospital, located at Morristown Medical Center.

The Fairview collections, last year and this year, took place in February, recognizing Jordan’s birthday. She turned 9 on Feb. 19.

Realz brought her idea to the other Bloomfield schools this year for the fundraiser and three joined: Bloomfield High School, Bloomfield Middle School, and Watsessing Elementary School.

Fairview collected $1,236.14 with Jordan’s class contributing $336. Watsessing collected $549.10 and will have a pizza party for its winning class next week.
At the high school, $310.43 was collected. But at BHS, the collection was done in two fundraising events: a bake sale, and a tape-the-teacher-to-the-wall event, where lengths of tape sold for $1. The middle school is currently raising the money. Each school contributed to a different cancer-related, charitable organization.

Two volunteers from the Fighting Children’s Cancer Foundation, John Carrico and Clint Valleau, brought the pizzas to Fairview along with backpacks for all the children in the winning homeroom.

They said the $1,200-plus raised by Fairview Elementary was a good amount for kids to raise in a small fundraiser.