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It’s not every day that excited Kiwi school pupils are encouraged to throw a slimy substance all over their principal.
But that’s exactly what recently happened to Willowbank School principal Adéle Jacobs and her senior leadership team in front of their pupils and teachers as part of the Dannemora school’s fundraising efforts, which included a spectacular colour fun run.
“It’s to help us implement things like our hockey goals, and new iPads and computers, and resources for the kids to use inside the school,” teacher Sharon Woodward says.
“We started in early April. We’ve had spot prizes like Bluetooth speakers, magnetic building blocks, and all sorts of prizes for children who signed up along the way.
“The first class to get everyone signed up got an ice block and the class that got the highest fundraising amount got to slime Adéle.
“If we got to $25,000, we were sliming Adéle. She then threw out that if we got to $30,000 we can slime all the senior leadership team.”
Thanks to donations from several teachers, the school raised $31,500.
“We’re absolutely rapt,” Woodward says of the amount.
“The parents’ support has been amazing. The people who got children to contact family and friends overseas, it’s been brilliant.”
Teacher Gina Grant’s class earned the honours of being the chief slimers on the day thanks to them having raise the highest amount, $3444.
She says the colour fun run was staged two weeks prior to the sliming of Jacobs and the senior leadership team.
“The teachers got here at about 7.45am on a Saturday, the kids arrived at 8.30am, and the race started at 9am.
“There were all these coloured powders in squirty bottles and the teachers have a different colour, or theme.
“We had the sprinklers going as the powder only sticks to the kids if they’re wet.
“They braved the freezing cold. The parents were welcome to run, as were pre-schoolers and ex-students, because we’ve been doing these for a number of years.”
One of the parents who got fully behind the fundraising is Mudassir Khan, whose five-year-old daughter Inaaya attends Willowbank School.
“We explained what it was for, and she was really excited,” he says.
“We were as excited as her. We recorded a video of her introducing what she’s doing and how it’s her first ever fundraiser.
“We posted that video to all of my family around the world. Everyone chipped in and I posted it on social media, and we had colleagues and friends all chipping in toward it.”
Inaaya managed to raise $1030 while the pupil who raised the most earned an impressive $1265, an effort Woodward describes as “amazing”.
To see more photos from the sliming event click here.
