Syracuse High School hosts successful “Harry Potter” fundraiser!

An annual fundraiser at Syracuse High School, Utah, was turned into a special Harry Potter celebration this year, complete with friendly house rivalry and competition, to raise money for local needy families. Every year, the school hosts a holiday fundraiser, but this year something different was required. The school tragically lost four students in the summer, and

the student body officers figured they needed to make a change [in] their existing theme for the year to instead focus on coming together. The social media hashtag #SyracuseStrong was born. This holiday season the school began another trending hashtag known as #SyracuseStrongGivesBack.

The theme of the fortnight was Harry Potter and the three grades of students smashed their previous fundraising total, by raising more than $10,000.

Events began when

Syracuse High sent an admittance letter to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on Dec. 1 to every single student. Each person was assigned to a house from Harry Potter. The seniors were Gryffindor, the juniors, Slytherin, the sophomores, Hufflepuff, and the teachers, […] Ravenclaw.

Further,

Students in each grade were tasked with helping raise the most money this holiday season for less fortunate families in the community. The class that raised the most won the House Cup.

Taylor Cella, a student officer, said,

We didn’t think it would explode as much as it has […] maybe we are all just really nerdy or something, but we thought it would be really cool to have a Harry Potter-themed week.

She further said,

It was a tough summer, but we have been able as a group to find a way to move forward.

The money raised will go to families in need:

This week deserving families from the school’s geographic boundary will be selected by the school administration, and specific gift cards to retailers will be donated to them by the student body officers.

Congratulations to all the students at Syracuse High School for raising such a wonderful amount of money – with some help from Harry.