By J1 Reporter Molly Monahan 

Every year, around the month of September, Marian students hear the class officers and student board members preach to the student body about Walk-a-Thon (WAT). “Go door-to-door! Go to your classes’ restaurants! Buy bake sale goods! Raise money!” Underneath the surface, the student-ran government pulls the strings for Walk-A-Thon, but exactly how much do they really do? 

Junior Class Officer Lexxington Olsen, explained all that being on student government entails during Walk-A-Thon. “Class officers are in charge of just their class, we run restaurant nights, outside fundraising, like the car wash, and making sure the bake sale

is a success,” Olsen said. Class officers have the task of making sure their classes have a good variety of food at the bake sale and that there is always someone working the stand. The class officers and Student Board members do a lot to make Walk-A-Thon run smoothly.

Some students simply are not as motivated as others to collect money, despite the effects it has on Field Day and the sweet prizes. They rely on bake sales, car washes, restaurant nights, or even private donors to bring in money. “One of the hardest parts is to come up with new fresh ideas to motivate students, like different price and exciting themes,” junior Student Board member Quinn Findley said.

Some common misconceptions that students have about their student governments involvement in the fundraiser are: they know the results before everyone else, all they do is constantly send emails to their classmates urging them to get money, and they keep track and count the money, which in reality is handled by adults in the business office. The class officers do send a lot of emails with reminders or, for the junior class, motivational videos, and they also help Student Board plan the whole fundraiser for the students, this is what makes Walk-A-Thon a student-ran fundraiser. Junior Class Officer Callie Cavanaugh said that a lot of students do not fully understand some aspects of planning Walk-A-Thon. “People ask me a lot of questions about WAT events that other class officers run. We try to divide and conquer tasks to stay on top of events because a lot goes into the planning of Walk-A-Thon.” The student government does a great deal to plan all that goes into the Marian school-wide fundraiser.