A Spooky Fundraiser Earns $1,775 for Kevin Guest House
Amherst Central High School junior, Isabella Kimball, spent the past year organizing The Spooktacular Skool Nite, a fundraiser for the Kevin Guest House and a Halloween event for our elementary and middle school students. The Oct. 29 event raised over $1,775 for the Kevin Guest House which provides a home away from home for families traveling to Buffalo for medical care. What started as a conversation with the family she babysat who had a connection to the Kevin Guest House morphed into a community event that she hopes will continue. She’s making sure it does by training a successor to organize it for next year.
In her sophomore year, Bella was nanny for Lynsey Zimdahl Weaver, Executive Director of Kevin Guest House. After a conversation with Mrs. Weaver one day, Bella offered to organize her own event to benefit KGH.
She had never been involved in something of this level and began work on it during the winter of 2018 during her sophomore year. She started at school by getting approval and support from ACHS principal Greg Pigeon. Together they brainstormed and pitched lots of ideas to develop something appropriate for an elementary and middle school event.
She obtained building permissions, enlisted business support and donors, refined ideas and recruited about 45 student-helpers in the Pathfinders and Trailblazer student leadership. She cold called businesses and refined her sales pitch to get donations of any kind. The MS/HS PTSA provided a grant that helped the event as well.
At school she is involved in Pathfinders, French Club, Symphony, pit crew, Sweet 16s and Varsity Singers, Chorale, lacrosse and Amherst Academy.
“I was excited about doing this fun thing and I had always seen how things turned out at the end because I’ve gone to things, but I did not know how much fine detail there is,” she said.