Triton’s Ivy Powell Competing In Student Of The Year Campaign
Triton’s Ivy Powell Competing In Student Of The Year Campaign
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Jackie Gorski-jgorski@timesuniononline.com
Triton’s Ivy Powell Competing In Student Of The Year CampaignBOURBON – On March 19, Triton Jr./Sr. High School junior Ivy Powell will finish a seven-week campaign to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society as part of the Student of the Year campaign.
Powell said the campaign isn’t run by any specific organization, but it’s run through the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
“Student of the Year is a philanthropic leadership development program for exemplary high school students. During the campaign, participants foster professional skills such as entrepreneurship, marketing and project management in order to raise funds for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS),” according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society website. “The title Student of the Year is awarded to the candidate or co-candidates in each community that raise the most funds during the seven-week competition.”
Powell said the students chosen for the program campaign to raise as much money as they can, competing against other students in the program. The first day Powell was allowed to raise money was Jan. 30.
“It was an honor to be chosen,” Powell said, stating she is Triton’s only candidate.
Powell was chosen after Powell’s advisor for the campaign came into Triton Jr./Sr. High School and asked who would be a good candidate for the campaign. Powell’s name was the only name that came up and this is the first year the school has been part of the program. She said she found out about being chosen in early November. If she had chosen not do the campaign, Powell said Triton would not have a candidate and would have been dropped from the program for the year.
“As Triton’s only candidate, I’m kind of alone in this, but I chose eight people from the community as my team to help me throughout this, so I had to chose them wisely,” Powell said.
Each candidate gets a team of eight to 10 people. Her teammates all have qualities that are helpful to her, having connections or knew how to do things she didn’t, such as advertising, making flyers, etc.
On March 19, there will be a grand finale at Notre Dame.
“It’s kind of a ball, it’s a big event, it’s fancy,” Powell said. “That night, there will be a silent auction and a live auction, and it’s a big banquet. That night, we’ll know how much we raised.”
If Powell raises the most money, she will get a $2,500 scholarship and gets the title of Student of the Year. She said, as far as future educational goals, she is thinking of possibly going to Purdue University in West Lafayette and study biomedical engineering.
“I’m not 100% sure yet,” she said. “I’m also considering IU, but since I want to study biomedical engineering, I think Purdue is calling my name.”
Powell said she believes she has raised over $12,000 so far as of Monday.
“We’ve tried to do calculations. I’m not exactly sure,” she said. “We’ve done some rough adding from all of my events and I have an online link to Facebook that a lot of people have donated to.”
Through that link, she can keep an eye of how much money people have directly donated to her campaign.
“I’ve done lots of fundraising events. I did some half time basketball shootouts. We did a teacher’s lounge bake sale. We did a 4-H breakfast,” Powell said.
She also had a matching box, where she went to one of the basketball games, went into the crowd with a mic and said she was raising money for LLS. Whatever she raised, her grandparents matched, up to $500. She raised $450 at that event, and with the match the total was $900.
“It was a huge success,” she said.
She has sent over 350 letters to people she thought would be interested in donating to her campaign. Powell doesn’t have to pay for postage as the state organization pays for that. She said anyone can donate to her campaign and anything would be appreciated.
“The Bourbon community and the local communities - I was blown away by the generosity and support this community provided me. It was amazing, absolutely amazing,” Powell said. “They’re so supportive and generous and I never imagined that, and it’s awesome.”
Powell talked about the personal benefits of doing the campaign.
She said she’s grown as a person, saying she didn’t realize she enjoyed giving back.
“Through this, I’ve bettered myself. I’ve become more socially comfortable. It’s done a lot for me,” Powell said. “I’m really glad to do it. My heart’s in it and it’s my passion. And I’m really glad to do it.”
On Saturday, Powell will have a community breakfast from 6 to 11 a.m. at Matchett Square Bourbon Senior Center, 805 N. Harris St., Bourbon. It will have a free-will donation.
On Monday, she is having a Hacienda night all day at Hacienda Mexican Restaurant, 3805 Lake City Highway, Warsaw. Powell said if people go into the restaurant Monday and tell them they’re with Powell or LLS, 20% of the person’s bill will go to Powell’s campaign.
To contribute to Powell’s campaign, people can also donate to her Student of the Year page at https://events.lls.org/in/sbendsoy20/IPowell.
