MANSFIELD, Ohio — For students and teachers at Madison South Elementary, the Hoops for Heart campaign is personal.
The school kicked off its annual fundraiser this week with all proceeds go to the American Heart Association.
“This is our seventh year of doing this at Madison South,” said physical education teacher and event coordinator Nikki Cox. “We lost a fifth-grade teacher to a heart attack about three years ago. We had taken part in the program prior to that, but that really hit home. Since then, we have raised more than $10,000. We’re just outside of being in the top 10 for money raised by schools in the state of Ohio during that time.
“Our staff and students always have responded very well.”
The school set a goal of $5,000 this year. More than $600 has been raised during the first two days of the fundraiser.
“And we just received a big donation from the Third Street Health Clinic. That was awesome,” Cox said. “The Madison High School leadership team did some fundraising at the high school for us.
“This is our first year of trying to reach out into the community. We are hoping to build on that in the future.”
The program includes an educational component. Students learn about heart disease and the importance of physical activity.
“We kick it off in physical education class. We work on basketball and jump-roping skills for about a three-week period and then at the end we have a big celebration,” Cox said. “We’ll have a staff basketball game. We put together jump-rope and basketball teams from the student population and they perform at halftime of the staff basketball game.
“Then we will announce all of our winners and they get prizes.”
The fundraiser runs until March 13. If anyone would like to donate, they can reach Cox by email at ncox@mlsd.net.
“It’s for a great cause,” Cox said. “Our kids want to help any way they can.”
“We lost a fifth-grade teacher to a heart attack about three years ago. We had taken part in the program prior to that, but that really hit home,” said teacher Nikki Cox.
