Students Turn Pocket Change Into Fun-Raising

It was cool to see his history teacher dressed as a hot dog, but Orange High sophomore Brandon Palmer was eager for more.

Specifically, pop singer and actress Mandy Moore, who Tuesday morning visited Brandon’s campus to reward students for raising the most pocket change -- $32,519 -- of any school nationwide for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Brandon, along with four other guys, wore white T-shirts spelling out M-A-N-D-Y during the hourlong assembly. At one point, 16-year-old Brandon ran up to Moore and gave her a red rose. He was going to just walk away, but she grabbed and hugged him.

“That was a plus,” a still-ecstatic Brandon said hours later. “She’s so pretty. It was just spur of the moment to go up there, and wow, I don’t know if anything can top this.”

During the assembly, teachers and administrators praised the students -- then got down to the business at hand: performing the silly tricks they had promised the kids during the three-week fund-raising campaign.

Along with Eric Van Veen, the hot-dog costumed history teacher who sang the Oscar Mayer wiener jingle, drama teacher Elizabeth Aldave crooned the Mandy Moore tune “Candy” while decked out in black-and-white makeup a la rock band KISS’ Gene Simmons.

School activities director Brian Mull, who last year painted his 1984 Toyota Camry orange as a fund-raiser challenge, this year raffled off the same car, and students earned a ticket for each $5 in donations they raised.

For the fifth consecutive year, Orange High raised the most of the more than 1,500 elementary, middle and high schools nationwide that participate in the program.

That a campus where two-thirds of the 2,000 students come from poor families could raise more than $150,000 over the past five years shows the school’s culture of giving, Principal S.K. Johnson said.

“Our kids don’t donate with the intention of getting Mandy Moore to come to Orange High,” he said. “It’s a good motivator, but it’s really secondary. We’re doing this because our kids understand that there are people out there who need our help.”

Even Brandon, for all of his excitement about the singer’s visit, said that isn’t why he donated at least a dollar each morning during first period for three weeks.

“It’s not just her,” he said. “She’s definitely an incentive, but the main reason is to support a cause and help people.”

Moore, 19, who played a girl with leukemia in the movie “A Walk to Remember,” participated in the Pasta for Pennies campaign as a high school student in Orlando, Fla., where the Olive Garden restaurant chain created the program in 1988. She has been the organization’s honorary chairwoman for the last two years.

Dressed in a pink chiffon shirt and blue jeans, Moore smiled and laughed throughout the school assembly, where she picked raffle tickets that won signed posters of herself, then selected the name of the Camry winner: freshman Carolina Flores, who is a year and two weeks shy of driving age.

There’s no school connection to leukemia, Johnson said, such as a teacher who died of the disease. His and other Orange High educators’ explanation for their consistent fund-raising success is that children who don’t have as much understand need better.

“We’re not in a wealthy community, but kids here know that there are others more unfortunate than we are,” he said. “They understand that someone out there needs our help, and we have a chance to give.”