Devils Lake Central Middle School students raised $9,000 for the Minot Public Schools flood relief efforts by raffling off tickets to tonight's Black Eyed Peas concert. Central Middle School principal Josh Johnson presented Minot Public Schools superintendent Mark Vollmer with a check on Friday morning.
Vollmer said the money will be primarily used to help students at the flooded Erik Ramstad Middle School.
The two Devils Lake Central Middle School students who sold the most tickets said it felt good to be helping out.
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Minot Public Schools superintendent Mark Vollmer, left, accepts a check for $9,000 for flood relief efforts from Devils Lake Central Middle School principal Josh Johnson on Friday morning.
Sixth-grader Kayla Estenson said her brother and aunt live in Minot and were impacted by the flood, so she wanted to help out. She sold a lot of tickets to her grandma's neighbors. She sold about $300 in raffle tickets. Eighth-grader Alec Brown sold $350 in raffle tickets and said he solicited his parents' friends. One of his parents' friends plunked down $50 for tickets.
The students were raffling off four tickets to the concert along with a $100 gas card.
Actor Josh Duhamel, a Minot native who is married to Black Eyed Peas band member Stacy Ferguson, posted on the group's Facebook page and offered to have the winner of the tickets meet him backstage after the concert. The kids who sold the tickets will receive autographed T-shirts and other items, said Johnson.
The school exceeded its original goal of raising $5,000 for flood relief. The fundraiser grew out of a discussion at a Parent Advisory Committee meeting at Central Middle School, where parents and staff had discussed how best to help flood victims. They decided to piggyback on the Black Eyed Peas concert.
Last year students at the school raised more than $15,000 for earthquake victims in Haiti, so students at the school make a habit of helping others out.