Emanuel Preschool in Milbank raised a lot of dough – over $11,000- during its Little Caesars Pizza Kit fundraiser. Forty-six students from four different classes sold 584 pizza kits for $11,512 in total sales. The school’s profit is $3,470.
“We’ve done this fundraiser for at least the past five years, but this is the most we have ever sold,” stated head preschool teacher Karen Tillma. She also explained students and families were given the option to make a $5 donation in lieu of buying a pizza kit. “We receive $5 for every kit sold, so with those extra donations, we hit our goal of 600 kits.”
An ingenious incentive was also presented. “We told the students and families if we made our 600 kit goal, we would throw a pie into the face of Pastor Cornelius,” Tillma said. “We did it during our preschool Christmas program.”
The top seller from the three-year-old class was Peyton Tesch. With her mom, Kimberly Tesch, she sold 40 kits. The top seller from the four-year-old class was Madison Bilben, daughter of Megan and Shane Bilben. She sold 63 kits.
The money will be used for bus transportation on a field trip and admission to the Children’s Science Museum in Brookings for all four classes. It also will help pay for the four-year-olds’ field trip to the Watertown Zoo at the end of the year when they study the letter Z.