St. Damian School Celebrates $50K U.S. Cellular Contest Win

St. Damian School has a little bit more change in the school's coffers, following a third-place finish in U.S. Cellular's Calling All Communities contest last month. With the support of family, friends and the community, the school earned $50,000 towards school improvements voted on by student's family members.

Improvements for the school are slated to include new technology in most classrooms, including the updating of older chalk or white boards to interactive white boards.

“We've got interactive whiteboards in the newer building, in some of the high grade classrooms,” Domke said. “This money is going to allow us to retrofit the older ones in the main building, or at least most of them. We'll do as many as we can and then hopefully get to the rest later with some more funding, somehow.”

Domke said that new whiteboards will feature Mimio software and technology, which will greatly improve students' learning experiences.

To celebrate the school's big win, the faculty, staff and students of St. Damian's participated in a schoolwide assembly that featured dancing, prizes and fun.

Principal Colleen Domke kicked off the event by inviting the students to get up and dance—which they gladly did. The students shimmied, shook and twisted away their excitement while the faculty and staff organized the prize portion of the event.

Once everyone settled down, Domke began pulling names of students from a bucket, with the winners receiving a themed “We're All In,” T-shirt, which was the school's slogan during the contest, and a coupon for one free dress-down day for the student to wear the shirt.

Domke then began pulling names out of a parents' bucket, with 10 winners receiving first, a voucher for $500 off their student's tuition, and if they were chosen again, a giftcard to the school's shop. Money for the prizes came from $5,000 from the $50,000 in prize money the school won.

“To earn a raffle ticket, parents or staff had to submit 20 cards to help contribute to the contest,” Domke said. “This was a way to give back to those who really helped us reach our goal.”