Every year, volunteer parents at St. Rose of Lima Academy (SRLA) have a fundraising goal to help keep tuition costs down. This year due to the COVID-19 required social distancing measures in place, they grew nervous when they had to cancel their silent auction and Walk-A-Thon events. They knew raising money was still necessary for next year, so they set out to do the best they could with the difficult circumstances presented and converted their fundraisers into an online Move-A-Thon with lowered expectations. Much to their surprise and thanks to the help of PledgeStar’s online fundraising system, SRLA doubled the amount of money they raised last year with their online Move-A-Thon, bringing in over $20,000 with a small student population of only 200!

Volunteer Catherine Peironi didn’t think that moving their fundraiser to an online-only event would be very successful and said, “We were really stressed out and nervous about asking for money.” Much to the volunteers’ surprise, it turned out that everyone was excited to have a little school and community spirit in the difficult times. To get families and students excited about the event, she and other parent volunteers drove from house to house drop off spiritwear T-shirts to every student. “It was a huge response,” said Peironi, “It was amazing.

Parents, children, and teachers were all thrilled that an event that didn’t require any in person fundraising made so much money for the school. Perioni also commented that, as fundraising chair, she wasn’t required to go to the school to drop off or pick up checks, reducing a huge amount of overhead for the event administrators. The school didn’t even need to spend money on any incentives for the students to donate.

To make the event extra special, the SRLA track coach filmed a warm-up video for everyone to watch on the morning of the Move-A-Thon. Students stretched and warmed up along to the video and then uploaded photos to the school Facebook group of themselves playing basketball, walking, and rollerblading. “It felt really good to see the kids. It was so cute looking at all their pictures,” said Peironi.

The kids and parents also enjoyed a fun competition between classes to see who could raise the most money. Peironi recalled that some parents donated to outpace others. In the end, the class that pulled ahead in first place was the smallest in size and head count - kindergarten! With only twelve students, the kindergarteners managed to bring in more than any other grade!

"We were so glad we did an online fundraiser with PledgeStar! It was a surprising and absolute success!"