Mt. Pleasant students are 'Freezin' for a Reason' to fund field trips
Students milled around the Mt. Pleasant Area High School swimming pool parking lot Friday, watching members of the Hecla Volunteer Fire Department raise the truck hoses to begin spraying the tarps placed on the grass field below.
Some of the students shivered as the wind picked up and they were hit with gentle sprays of water.
“This is ‘Freezin’ for a Reason,’ ” said Mt. Pleasant High School Principal Robert Gumbita.
Blue Shirts, a high school club led by life skills teacher Jackie Reed, hosted the second annual Freezin’ for a Reason fundraiser. Students paid $10 to play Slip N’ Slide kickball and take unlimited trips down a makeshift water slide.
“All of the money that’s raised today goes back to the Blue Shirts club,” said Jocelyn Hill, a special education teacher and one of the event organizers. “When they take the life skills students out in the community or on a field trip, this helps fund those activities.”
Blue Shirts is a club for high school students who help with junior and senior high life skills students — a group of students who require communication and sometimes physical assistance.
“We advocate for inclusion and kindness within the school district,” said Morgan Reese, a member of the Blue Shirts. “We go on field trips, host fun days like this and we hold fundraisers. It’s all about making everyone feel included and spreading kindness throughout the school.”
Jillian Kelley, long-term life skills substitute, said that it took about three weeks to gather supplies for the event and coordinate with the fire department. After a day in the sun, students gathered in the school for an afternoon screening of the movie “Grown Ups.”
“We have a really unique culture here where our students really embrace our life skills kids,” Gumbita said. “We have a really unique atmosphere when it comes to that relationship. Blue Shirts has really helped us create a culture of acceptance and understanding that not everybody is the same, and that’s OK.”
Haley Daugherty is a TribLive reporter covering local politics, feature stories and Allegheny County news. A native of Pittsburgh, she lived in Alabama for six years. She joined the Trib in 2022 after graduating from Chatham University. She can be reached at hdaugherty@triblive.com.
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