Kindergarten student helps school raise funds for cancer research
Brockbank Elementary School in Spanish Fork was able to donate nearly $3,000 to breast cancer research with the help of a kindergarten student with a big heart.
Ace Sampson was sitting in his classroom when a sixth grade student from the school’s “Kid’s Power Committee” came to present the school’s fundraiser for that year, which was the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The student presented the fundraiser by telling the class the story of a friend of hers who lost her mother to breast cancer. According to Ace’s mom, Jessica Sampson, what Ace heard that day touched him deeply, and sprung him into action.
“When I picked Ace up from school, he told me that we needed to go to the bank to get $100 out of his account because he was going to cure cancer,” Jessica Sampson said.
Sampson said that she and her husband encouraged Ace to donate money, but maybe not that much.
Undeterred, Ace persisted, and so his parents, along with and aunt decided to make some cookies to sell to help him raise some money.
“We made some sugar cookies with pink frosting and some chocolate chip cookies to sell,” Sampson said. “I posted about it on my Instagram page, and we didn’t think it would go very far, but it started spreading like wildfire.”
Ace did a few sales door-to-door, but calls started coming in from the neighborhood, across the state and even from other states, namely Nevada and Illinois. The young kindergartener set out to donate $100, but in 24 hours, was able to raise $450 to bring to his school.
Ace’s story was published on the school’s website, and was picked up by KSL.com, grabbing the attention of Arctic Circle’s corporate office, who sent a check for $1,000 to the school to be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
According to a school spokesperson, the total donated by students at the school including Ace was $1,763.65.
With the donation from Arctic Circle, the total the school was able to donate to the foundation was $2,763.65.
When asked how he felt about the money he was able to help raise, his mother said that he was happy he could help.
“When I told Ace that because of his desire to help, that Arctic Circle was donating $1,000, he said, ‘Well I guess that means there will be a lot more people that can be alive in this world with all this money we’ve earned!”