It is not unusual to come to OFHS on any given day and find anyone on the staff or in the student body wearing pink to bring awareness for cancer. It is a very important cause and one that is dear to the hearts of students and staff at OF.
In fact, our own Assistant Principal for Curriculum and Development, Dr. Mike Boniface wears pink EVERY SINGLE DAY in the month of October! Why? He is a part of the Men Wear Pink Campaign and is now on the Executive Board. So all of the cancer awareness at OFHS is obviously close to his heart too.
The Oak Forest Soccer team is a driving force behind this Cancer Awareness month too. On Sept. 26, they held their annual Childhood Cancer Awareness Game called “Bengals Help Kick Childhood Cancer!” and raised money for the Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest by selling tickets for gift baskets during lunchtime and also selling raffle tickets as well! They really worked hard for a long time raising money for this event and raised $1805.
Like the OFHS Soccer team, the OFHS Girls’ Volleyball team has a very important Cancer Awareness game called Volley For the Cure which also happened on October 17. Ozinga came to support us on that day and sent their pink-striped cement mixer to the event to bring awareness which was really neat!
Our DECA Class and Club worked hard behind the scenes making and selling shirts and sweatshirts for students and staff to wear and donated their profits toward the cause. They started selling gold shirts in September because that is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month and continued making pink shirts into October. They also organized several fundraisers at local restaurants like our newly opened Oak Forest Culvers, and the Tinley Park Portillos. They also had Nothing Bundt Cakes help with a fundraiser for this cause.
Our Cheer Team volunteered at the Making Strides Event for ACS for the 16th year in a row! So, at the final football game of the year, the PINK OUT game, the Cheer Team presented the American Cancer Society with the money that DECA and the school had fundraised for cancer. A lot of sports teams wore pink in support of cancer awareness too.
This was a full school effort, so if a specific group’s name was not listed here, it doesn’t mean they didn’t support our cancer awareness campaign. We are proud of all of the students at OFHS who regularly support our awareness campaigns and really think hard about people affected by them.
