Students at Lake High School recently used doughnuts for a worthy cause — they sold more than 5,000 of the sweet treats to provide a service dog for a young girl in a wheelchair.
It all started with a challenge. Teresa Miller challenged students in her Senior Legal Studies class to help raise funds to provide a dog for Kiersten McCay, the 11-year-old daughter of School Resource Officer David McCay. Kiersten has Pitt-Hopkins syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that has left her nonverbal and developmentally delayed. She also has seizures.
Miller said she saw that a GoFundMe account for $12,000 had been set up to purchase a service dog for Kiersten by members of Lake teacher Frank Pilato’s marketing class, and she encouraged her students to also raise money for the effort.
Legal Studies student Erin King was eager to help. She had spent time shadowing McCay and admired his skill at handling special-needs students,
Erin held a brainstorming session with her classmates, who decided a Doughnut Day would be a great fundraiser.
She called Krispy Kreme Doughnuts in Akron, where she secured a price for 49 dozen doughnuts, but she had to call back several times to increase the order. The class ended up ordering and selling 430 dozen doughnuts: That’s more than 5,000 doughnuts that were sold at schools throughout the district.
Miller’s class raised $6,623 toward the dog’s $12,000 purchase. As of Wednesday, the marketing class’s GoFundMe account had raised $9,686 to be used for Kiersten’s dog’s upkeep and training other service dogs.
David McKay said the family is “overwhelmed and grateful” for all that the Lake students have done.
The service dog, Yang, was purchased from Frost Kennels in Marlboro Township. He notices changes in Kiersten’s body chemistry and can anticipate a seizure. Then he licks her face to try to bring her out of the seizure, and alerts the family when she has problems. Later, Kiersten will be able to hold on to his harness for balance when she walks.
When Kiersten and Yang visited Lake High School, students were amazed at the 13-month-old dog’s excellent behavior.
Senior Johnny Brost noted the dog’s protective reaction whenever Kiersten left her wheelchair.
“He was very protective,” said Nathan Obourn.
Earlier this week, the McKay family — Jennifer and David and their children, Addison, 7, and Kiersten — and Yang were special guests at Team Day at Derby Downs in Akron as Lake High School students prepared to compete in this week’s Gravity Racing Challenge STEM Team Competition.
“It was really a team effort,” said student Kyle Bolyard.
Senior Robert Beaucock called the project “a satisfying experience.”
Student Amanda Pyles said she was happy to see the impact the effort made on the family.