Kissing a Cow for Charity

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The St. Louis Student Council completed a rather unusual fundraiser on Friday, when three “lucky” teachers won the opportunity to kiss a real live cow in front of the entire student body.

Under the guidance of the school administration, the SLS Student Council runs a monthly fundraiser to support local causes selected by student leaders.  Previous fundraisers have benefited Art with a Heart, Our Daily Bread, Wounded Warrior Project and other meaningful community-based organizations.

For May, students selected the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center (www.grassrootscrisis.org) in Columbia, a 24-hour resource for individuals and families in need.  For the past week students emptied piggy banks and encouraged donations, to be deposited a jar labeled with the name of a favorite teacher or faculty member. Collections were tallied each day and the “winners” were announced at the event on Friday, immediately prior to the kissing.

To the chanting of “Kiss the Cow,” the three staff members with the most donated money were David Hughes (Spanish Teacher), Mary Ewachiw (Assistant Principal) and Karen Coyle (First Grade Teacher).  These three good sports took turns kissing Amelia, a two-year-old Jersey cow graciously provided through Dayton 4H by Kelly Hensing, a local farmer who operates Hensing’s Hilltop Acres (www.hensingfarm.com) in Dayton.  Amelia was calm and friendly, even with 500 students yelling and cheering throughout the event.

At the end of the day we raised more than $1,000 for the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center (http://grassrootscrisis.org), the students had a great time, and our three staff members got a chance to meet a cow up close and personal.

We would like to express our thanks to Kelly Hensing, her husband and son who took time from their busy day to bring Amelia over to meet us and talked to the students about  the 4H program. We would also like to express our gratitude to Mr. and Mrs. Goyena for helping us find Amelia and make arrangements for her visit.  Thank you also to the administration for this event and allowing the entire student busy to participate.  Last but not least, we would like to thank everyone who made a donation to this worthy cause.