HELENA — Students at Rossiter Elementary School are helping raise funds for families in need this Thanksgiving, but how do they do it? They give their donations to their teacher of choice, and whichever teacher receives the most donations gets the reward of kissing Carl the pig in front of the whole school.
Rossiter Elementary School Principal Dr. Wynn Randall, school counselor Mary Anderson, and secretaries Denise Richards and Kristen Cetraro challenged their students to raise the most money for families in need this Thanksgiving for the "Who will kiss a pig?" drive.
In previous years, Rossiter Elementary hosted a food drive competition for the school during Cats vs Griz week where students were asked to bring in canned goods to show which fan base was the most generous, But Rossiter Elementary School Counselor Mrs. Anderson wanted to switch it up this year, and Principal Randall was happy she did.
"Ms. Anderson kind of came up with the idea that this year we should try raising just the money piece of it to give gift cards instead and then having who will kiss the pig. So whoever had the most money donated would have to kiss a pig at the end of it."
When putting on his 'pig kissing lipstick' with the other contenders, Randell had a funny feeling that it was going to be him kissing the bacon.
"I pretty much knew from the get-go I was going to be because every almost every student that walked by was telling me I was kissing the pig and they donated money to me. So I pretty much had an idea," said Randell.
It was a close finish, so the students decided that Anderson had to kiss Carl the pig as well.
The students and their families want to keep their connection with the community strong, so this year, the total donation pool impressed the Rossiter staff in the best way possible.
"Families coming in, given money, change everything they can to help out other families within the community. So it all goes right back to our Rossiter family. So it just builds that community connection that we always talk about," said Randell.
Randell was not only impressed by the students but was also impressed by the Rossiter family as a whole for coordinating this event altogether.
"Just how phenomenal the Rositer community is and the staff as a whole, and the backing that we have from our community, families, and everybody as a whole within the building and all around. So just a great place to be," said Randell.
The students helped raise over $1,000 in donations.