‘It really hits home that we’re doing this for people who could be us’

Middle schoolers rally around a childhood cancer research group.

Of all the students sixth grade teacher Jennifer Dawson has taught in her 24 years at Lost Mountain Middle, one stands out. He was the young man diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma, an aggressive childhood cancer.

“He beat it several times, but in high school, he had his leg amputated,” Dawson said. “In May 2008, it came back. I saw him three days before he died, and he asked me to keep fighting for kids with cancer so others didn’t have to suffer like he did.”

Dawson has kept that promise by being an ardent supporter of the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research. She learned about the nonprofit a day after the student’s funeral while on car duty at the West Cobb school.

“I met a mom who was frantic about picking up her child — a girl on a scooter with an oxygen tank,” she said. “She told me they’d just started this charity called the Rally Foundation. That girl died the next month and was one of the school’s first Rally kids.”

The school now has a wall dedicated to its 10 students who have been touched by cancer. In their honor, Dawson has led a fall campaign dubbed “4 Quarters 4 Research,” a Rally Foundation program designed to get young people involved in the mission by collecting spare change.

“That first year, we didn’t know what we were doing, but we raised $2,000. Yes, from middle schoolers that people think are self-absorbed,” Dawson said. “I took pics of the kids we’d lost and blew them up and put their stories in the main hall. As kids came in from the buses during our rally week, they saw kids their own age.

“It really hits home that we’re doing this for people who could be us.”

The school’s Rally Week has grown to include various events, including T-shirt sales, a silent auction, a barbecue and even lessons in personal finance. During last fall’s drive, students collected $35,000, bringing the total raised since 2008 to $265,000.

Some students have taken the cause with them into high school and beyond. Dawson said Harrison and Hillgrove high schools and the baseball team at Kennesaw State now support the foundation with drives.

“It is a lot of work, but it’s such a worthy cause and the kids learn a lot doing it,” she said. “It’s like spirit week but for ourselves.”

COURTESY Students at Lost Mountain Middle have raised more than $265,000 for the Rally Foundation, a nonprofit that supports childhood cancer research. The school has a wall dedicated to its 10 students who have been touched by the disease.