SCARBOROUGH – Faculty and staff at Scarborough High School gamely dressed up in silly costumes Friday, Oct. 30, to help the school’s Interact Club raise money for the Circle Camp for Grieving Children in Sweden, Maine.
Essentially, teachers were paid to dress in costume on the last Friday before Halloween, as students made donations at lunchtime all last week to encourage their favorite teachers and staff members to dress up.
The fundraiser was scheduled to run through Tuesday, Nov. 3, and a gift from the Hannaford supermarket in Scarborough has allowed the club to match all donations made, according to Sara Fitzpatrick, president of Interact.
The donations will help pay for more campers to attend the annual summer camp session designed to assist youngsters who are grieving.
The camp serves girls between the ages of 9 and 14 and provides programming that offers both traditional camp and age-appropriate grief activities, according to the Circle Camps website.
In addition to the camp in Maine, there are also Circle Camps in New Hampshire and West Virginia.
Fitzpatrick came up with the idea for the faculty dress-up day after volunteering at the Circle Camp for the past two years as a lifeguard and counselor.
“I absolutely fell in love with the camp,” she said. “It is an amazing experience being able to help the girls. They truly go through an incredible amount of growth” during the one-week camp session.
Fitzpatrick said that when many of the campers first arrive they “do not want to talk about their parent and cannot bear to think about their loss.”
However, throughout the week, the campers take part in grief activities that help them begin to face the demands of day-to-day living.
“I love being able to help them with this transformation,” Fitzpatrick said.
She added, “The amazing thing about camp is that they are able to meet girls like them (and) they realize they are not alone. They (also) form strong friendships that last even when the girls go back home.”
Fitzpatrick said there are many girls who would like to attend the Circle Camps.
“We hope that our donations will help enable more girls to have (that) wonderful experience,” she said.
Fitzpatrick is a senior at Scarborough High and has been a member of the Interact Club for the past four years. The club is a branch of Rotary International and run by high school students.
She said the club has about 50 members who volunteer at “dozens of events throughout the year and (help) run many fundraisers to support community and worldwide causes.”
Among the places Scarborough Interact members volunteer are the Ronald McDonald House, the Root Cellar, the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and the Morrison Center.
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