Ames Meeker Students Raise Money to Buy Hats for Cancer Awareness

Fedoras, ball caps, cat hats, baby hats, pointy hats, bonnets and head bands cover the bookshelves of 's media center.

There are about 134 hats and 30 headbands in total, a handful of Melissa Hanson's fifth-graders said. In October, their class raised the most money during a childhood cancer awareness drive they called Change Cancer.

Hanson's class collected $169 and 45 or 55 cents, the kids can't remember which.

An entire $100 of that came from student Adam Rice.

“My dad said whatever I had, he would multiply by 10,” Adam said.

So Adam withdrew $10 from his bank account.

Last year, some of these same kids raised enough money to buy teachers classroom projectors and document cameras. This year, they wanted to focus on helping people outside the school walls. But when students brought in their change and hats they said they were thinking about Lisa Dolan, the school's media specialist, who had cancer twice before.

Dolan didn't want to talk much about it. But the students know.

“Mrs. Dolan thought it was hard for her to go through,” Adam said.

The project to purchase and collect hats for child cancer patients, called Hats from the Heart of Mee (that's two e's for Meeker,) is an ongoing school fundraiser that's expected to run through November.

“We decided to get hats instead of wigs, because wigs cost too much. And when they take chemo their hair falls out,” said Dillon Tate, a fifth-grader.

Buckets were left out for change and students told their families. As word spread, hats arrived from out of state, said 10-year-old Johanna Krier. They brought in almost $600 that will be used to buy even more hats.

The Jennings Real Estate Team sent postcards to all of their clients and collected hats at its business. And MetLife in Des Moines gathered hats company wide. Teachers think they have a total of more than 200, counting the hats that are packed at Dolan's home.

“The goal is to fill up every book shelf with hats, so we are pretty much almost done,” said Audrey Kramer, 10.

Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines will be the recipient of the gifts. The delivery has not yet been arranged, but media specialist Andy North said she hopes that children will be able to watch it on Skype so they understand the impact of what they have done.

“It feels good just to help around the world,” Dillon said.

“It feels good to know we are helping,” Johanna said.