It was a once-in-a-lifetime shot, and Bethany Academy mother Angela Ramey couldn’t have had a better time to make it.
Standing in the middle of the gymnasium, dwarfed by towers of boxes packaged for needy families to enjoy a hearty holiday meal and surrounded by cheering students and parents, Angela and her daughter Grace pump themselves up for the opportunity to halve their 2016-2017 tuition bill.
“Mom, just shoot the ball!” Grace shouts. “You can do it!”
Angela closes her eyes, murmurs a prayer, and hurls the ball—granny-style, no less—toward the hoop.
It bounces against the gym floor, and the school groans, but not for long, as disappointment crescendos into disbelieving screams of excitement.
Because—miracle of miracles—Angela Ramey has just bounced the basketball into the hoop from half-court.
While Angela’s lucky win might be the best gift Bethany Academy could have given the family for Christmas, hers was not the only family to benefit from the school’s generosity. “Bethany Loves Bloomington” was the first fundraiser of its kind at the K-12 private Christian school, and born of the school’s desire to give back to the community in which it resides.
“The Twin Cities area has the 9th highest concentration of hungry poor in the United States,” Bethany Academy’s Director of Development Rochelle Platter told ISM. “We wanted to do something to show students how to help their own community, in their own backyards. I don’t know how many students know that hungry people live in the United States instead of just abroad, and we wanted a way to show them how to help their neighbors.”
The event raised money and the volunteers to help feed the local hungry, overshooting its initial 30,000 meal packing goal by more than 10,000. The school ran a simultaneous capital campaign to raise money for the school, with the family raising the most money winning the opportunity to take a “half-court, half-tuition” shot—an opportunity which gave the Ramey family an unexpected early holiday gift.
“We’re thrilled to be able to offer this sort of prize to one of our families,” Rochelle said. “They would all deserve to have this happen to them. And Angela’s reaction in the video, when she realizes she won the prize? That’s completely her. She and her whole family are phenomenal, amazing.”
The social media frenzy Angela’s unexpected win has whipped up will more than pay for the approximate $4,000 discount the school will be giving the Ramey family in the 2016-2017 school year as Grace enters fifth grade. (Rochelle said that every school's department would be "more than happy" to contribute part of its budget toward the tuition discount.)
On December 17, Good Morning America featured the family in a national segment online during which Angela—proudly wearing her Bethany Academy sweatshirt—again makes a basket after taking a moment to pray.
We’ll be featuring a more in-depth feature in January's issue of The Source for Private School News, but for now, we’d like to offer our congratulations toward Bethany Academy for a remarkably effective fundraiser and a happy holiday toward the ecstatic Ramey family.
Additional ISM resources:
The Source for Development Directors Vol. 13 No. 8 The Hidden Costs of Fundraising Events
The Source for Admission Directors Vol. 11 No. 3 'Tis the Season for Service ... And Open Houses
The Source for Private School News Vol. 13 No. 11 "And to All, a Good Night"—Community Efforts by Independent Schools During the Holidays
Additional ISM resources for Gold Consortium members:
I&P Vol. 38 No. 5 Community Service and Service Learning: Designing a Successful Program
