Desert View Academy honored for charitable milestone
School has raised over $100K for Leukemia and Lymphoma Society
Deb Weigel has shaved her head, kissed a pig and been slimed — all for a good cause, of course.
Weigel, the principal of Desert View Academy, a charter school whose campus is on the southeast corner of Avenue C and 16th Street, is pondering what her next stunt will be.
“The kids say they want me to jump out of a plane,” she joked, but nothing has been decided yet. Weigel said she was thinking more along the lines of bungee jumping, parachuting or pitching a tent on the roof of the school.
Weigel does these stunts to motivate DVA students to raise funds for its Pennies for Patients drive. Over the past several years, students and staff at DVA have raised more than $101,000 for the Arizona chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Earlier this month, the school was presented with a lifetime achievement award for being the first of 17 schools in western Arizona to hit that $100K mark. They will get another yellow banner to hang in their multipurpose room. Each banner represents $5,000 in funds raised, and there are five of them.
Brittany Patton, of the Phoenix LLS, was on hand to present the awards to Weigel and her staff.
“I think that’s phenomenal to say that you truly do give back to the community,” Patton said.
Giving back is part of the culture at DVA, Weigel said. While the school took off last year for raising funds for LLS through the Pennies 4 Patients drive, it just wrapped up a food drive for the Yuma Community Foodbank, in which more than 6,000 items were donated.
“They had to go get the bigger truck for the food bank because they brought the little truck and it wouldn’t fit,” Weigel noted.
Anita Aldama, one of the coordinators of the events, said the school does other fundraisers as well, such as Toys For Tots, Habitat for Humanity, the Humane Society of Yuma and others.
Patton estimated the school had probably put about $500,000 into local
agencies through branding and engagements.
In order for Weigel to complete her studentissued challenge, all the classes must meet a minimum goal.
“In order for me to do the challenge, every class has to meet the minimum, because we don’t want it just to be one or two classes raising it and another class doesn’t do it.”
Aldama and Weigel were both surprised that students wondered what happened to the penny drive last spring.
“It was pretty cool because
the kids kept saying, ‘How come we’re not doing it? How come we’re not?’ and so now they’re asking again,” Weigel said. “Even though we did take a year off, I think that it was good because now they want it. It’s not something I’m pushing on them to want it.”