Agassiz’s grad class won’t be going without after the community came together to replace more than $1,000 worth of donated cans and bottles.
On Sunday, Feb. 21, Grade 12s at Agassiz Elementary Secondary School held a bottle drive throughout Agassiz and Harrison to raise money for their grad expenses. The grads collected hundreds of dollars worth of recyclables and stored them at the home of one of the Grade 12s so they could be sorted and brought to the bottle depot.
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On Thursday, March 11, grad committee organizer Nicole Pope posted in one of the local Facebook groups that at least half of the bottles the grads had been collecting were stolen, about $1,000 worth.
“We hope you really needed them,” she said to the unknown people who stole the bottles in her post. “We already have lost so much due to COVID-19, we barely have a ceremony and cannot celebrate our years of highschool coming to an end.”
The post, however, launched an outpouring of support from the community, with many saying they had bags of recyclables and others asking where they could donate cash.
So many people pitched in to replace the stolen bottles that Pope had to put out another post asking people to stop donating until they had a chance to sort them all.
“We are so appreciative of the communities help with donations and support during our fundraising,” Pope said in an email to the Observer. She added that although the grad committee isn’t accepting more bottles themselves, people wanting to donate can bring them in to the Agassiz Bottle Depot and ask the funds to be put onto the Agassiz Elementary Secondary School Grad account.
How much the grad class has raised so far is a mystery, although Pope did say that Supervalu had stepped in to donate $1,000 for their events.
“We are keeping our bottle fundraising money total as a surprise for the end,” Pope said.
The grad class has other fundraising activities planned, including a spring planter sale and possibly a car wash.
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The funds raised by the graduating class will go to support their year-end celebrations, which will look a little different this year because of COVID-19.
The money will help pay for the grad classes’s 2021 lanyards and their graduation ceremony, which will showcase each student for about 20 minutes and have a dedicated photographer. The Grade 12s are also planning to have a grad parade, like the school did in 2020.
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