WHS Class of 2010 Raising Funds for Whitehall School District

The Whitehall Class of 2010 has decided to cancel the upcoming ten-year reunion and repurpose those funds to benefit Whitehall Schools. Senior class officers are senior class officers unto death, and so the same individuals who planned the 2010 senior trip to Denver and spent hours in concessions are now setting up a GoFundMe site and asking fellow graduates to donate the monies that they would have spent coming home for the summer reunion.

2010 graduates Amy Reavis, Travis Volz, Kellee Glaus (three co-presidents) and Helen Hobbs are spearheading the effort, and the four continue to be close friends. Amy Reavis and Travis Volz began dating their senior year, and as Amy recently said of their early days, "Nothing says love like putting in orders of no. 10 cans of queso together." The couple is happily married and living in the Berkeley area. Travis just finished his PhD in Physics at Washington State University and Amy is studying law at University of California, Berkeley. Kellee is now a doctor completing her residency in Billings, and Helen is also in the Berkeley area, completing her PhD in chemistry at UC Berkeley.

Funds raised will go toward paying off the accumulated lunch balances at the school. Currently, the school lunch debt for students in Whitehall Schools totals $2,776.46. For those who do not qualify for a reduced lunch, the cost is $2 for breakfast and $3 for lunch. This means that at ~20 school days per month, families pay up to $100 per child each month. One child, who eats both meals at school every school day, incurs $900 in meal charges in a year. If families do not pay their lunch fees, graduating students have diplomas withheld and the school has to eat the cost while already on a tight budget.

Given the current economic crisis, especially for many Whitehall parents who work in the service industry, families who maybe once could have paid lunch fees are now channeling reduced resources towards other needs.

If more funds are donated than required for the lunch debt, the money will be held by the school for the same need in future years.

The GoFundMe site is now live. If you are not a member of the class of 2010 but would like to support the cause, go to the Whitehall High School Facebook page or the Whitehall High School webpage at https://www.whitehallschools.org/

Note: Frontier Days is still being planned by the Whitehall Chamber of Commerce. Until an official decision is made by the state that includes the end of July, the Chamber will be moving ahead as usual with planning for Frontier Days