By J1 Reporter Meghan Bartness

Walk-A-Thon (WAT) is a fully student-run fundraiser, for tuition assistance, and other Marian priorities. Food give back nights are a WAT must for Marian girls. They bring classes together to eat some tasty food, and cohesively bring money in towards the class’s goal. That being said, has anyone ever thought about how the beloved class officers plan the numerous food nights?

 Senior Kate Timmerman, who has been leading her class since freshman year, says class officers organize it all, and they start with reaching out to restaurants they have used in the past or through connections. This year’s seniors planned places like Arby’s, Godfathers, and Runza. Timmerman has advice for the classes in next year’s Walk-A-Thon; “I would just say to try and get as many companies as you can, but if they fall through, don’t worry about it.”  

Junior class officer Claire Bentley said they started planning for the food nights in July, and chose to study the school calendar to strategize which days the most people could go to the event. Much like Timmerman, Bentley says, “Reach out to restaurants through connections, make sure you split the work, and don’t give up.” Bentley says, “The restaurant nights don’t make or break it class, but they do give our class extra outlets to donate and overall motivation.” Sophomores followed the same game plan as the seniors and juniors.

Unlike all the other classes, the freshmen don’t have class officers to keep them motivated and plan their food nights, so what do they do? Ms. Esther Hamra, one of the freshman class moderators, says it was all the students. The freshmen took initiative and planned all of them themselves: they contacted, planned, and got the word out.

An immense amount of planning went into these food nights that is a proud Walk-A-Thon tradition. The class officers and moderators have been working tirelessly for months and in their minds, this year‘s food nights were all a big success. This year’s largest food night total was Arby’s with $1,500, and Chipotle, Mangia Italiana, Godfathers, and eCreamery all gave more than $200.