Rather than continuing Key Club’s tradition of hosting Cash-for-Cancer, for the first time the club combined efforts with Longhorn Council (LoCo) and will host the event together at the pep rally Friday March 24.

Just like previous years, all proceeds raised from raffle tickets sold by Key Club members were donated to Friends of Kids With Cancer, yet for the first time, LoCo members also fundraised money for the organization through a coin fundraiser at lunch.

“This year, Key Club members sold raffle tickets exclusively to pie Dr. Mitchell, whereas last year students bought raffle tickets for a chance to pie individual teachers,” junior and co-vice president of Key Club Vaishali Shah said. “We hope that the changes that have been made in the event will raise more money than last year since students will now have the chance to donate to both Key Club and LoCo members through two different types of fundraisers that are raising money for the same cause.”

Instead of teachers volunteering to be pied, students have the chance to donate change to LoCo’s penny war between teachers to determine which seven out of the 18 nominated teachers will be pied.

“When a student asked me in passing during class if I wanted to be pied, I said yes without realizing what I was signing up for,” English teacher Michelle Kerpash said. “If I win the penny war and I’m chosen to be pied, I’m probably going to wear my glasses or goggles so that I don’t have to worry about whipped cream in my eyes.”

While in the past a raffle determined which students had the chance to pie a teacher, this year during LoCo’s dodgeball tournament in December, members of the team that won best dressed were chosen to pie the teachers.

“At the rally, Key Club will be drawing one name rather than the 25 we usually pull, and the one student chosen will be pieing Dr. Mitchell,” junior and president of Key Club Hannah Hoffman said.

The event will be held at the spring pep rally on Friday in the gym instead of at lunch in the cafeteria where the event has traditionally been held.

“I think lunch and the pep rally are two completely different environments. [I imagine that ] students are more unwilling or worried about getting up to pie a teacher in front of the entire school during the pep rally,” Hoffman said. “Lunch, on the other hand, was a nice medium because you have the energy of everyone in the room watching, but it’s a much smaller stage that I feel like people are more comfortable with.”

While Cash-for-Cancer is the only chance students have to donate to Friends of Kids With Cancer during the school year, the two organizations hope to use this as an opportunity to better the community together.

“Friends of Kids With Cancer is a great group that Key Club enjoys raising money for every year,” Hoffman said. “While our 2016 event was a huge success that I really enjoyed helping out with, this year we have two completely different organizations working to raise money for a non-profit organization in need of any donations possible.”