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While reading the obituary of Charlotte Mecham, former assistant principal Lynn Mecham's mother, the Mapleton Junior High Student Council read that in lieu of flowers donations could be sent to the Huntsman Cancer Center. To honor her memory and to support Mr. Mecham, the student council started a cancer legacy fundraiser.
To raise awareness of how cancer touches so many lives, the student council gave cancer facts on the morning announcements and created a legacy wall where students and faculty placed hearts with the names of loved ones or friends who had battled cancer. During lunch, the student council sold pizza and had a pie throw. Donations jars were put in homerooms. After rising over $1,500, the student council planned a special assembly to give Mr. Mecham the check to take to the Huntsman Center. Mr. Mecham came to the junior high thinking he was going to a PTA meeting; however, Mr. Mecham was surprised to find the gym full of the Mapleton Junior High students waiting to honor cancer victims.
During the assembly Mrs. Burr, the intern assistant principal, shared her son's fight with cancer she said, "My son became a hero, not the football hero he had dreamed of, but to me the best kind of hero, an ordinary hero who when faced with an extraordinary challenge stepped up to meet it."
Mr. Wyatt, teacher, coach, and student council advisor, shared his own story of battling cancer as a teenager. Mr. Wyatt said, "You have the power within you. As you think so you become. If you think you're beaten, you are right. If you think you will win, you will."
Then the students called Mr. Mecham forward and told him they wanted to help cancer victims in honor of his mother's personal battle with cancer. Mr. Mecham told the students, "My mother was a hero. She battled cancer six times." He told them this is exactly what his mother would want to do - help others in their challenges. The student body sat respectfully silent during the assembly where each was told that heroes rise to meet his or her challenges and heroes find strength in lifting and helping others just as they had done as a student body the past few weeks.
Mr. Mecham lives in Santaquin. |
