Warwick Interact Club selects winner of Make-A-Wish fund raiser
WARWICK — On Tuesday, Jan. 8, the Warwick Valley High School Interact Club selected the winning raffle ticket in its recently conducted fund raiser for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Hudson Valley.
The group had partnered with the Horizon Family Medical Group, which donated the prizes, and the Hudson Valley Performing Arts Foundation to conduct a raffle for a brand new autographed guitar and stand.
Joan Sullivan of Pine Island, the Grand Prize winner, will now have a choice of a guitar autographed by either the Rolling Stones, Taylor Swift or Carlos Santa.
A total of $5,000, the combination of proceeds raised by the Interact Club and the Hudson Valley Performing Arts Foundation, will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, a non-profit organization that describes its mission as granting wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength, and joy.
The “wishes,” explained Tara Thorne, development manager for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of the Hudson Valley, cost between $7,500 and $10,000.
In order to qualify for a wish, the child must be between the ages of two and a half and 18 at the time of referral. It is the child’s physician that ultimately decides if a child is eligible.
“The greatest thing you will do at this school is give back,” Dr. Raymond Bryant, Warwick superintendent of schools, told the members of the Interact Club. “And that’s what you have done.”
Dan Chester, president of the Hudson Valley Performing Arts Foundation, drew the winning raffle tickets.
“Community service begins in your own back yard. And if you just do something in your own back yard that helps one person,” he said, “You are performing community service.”
Dr. Alex Joanow, a founding partner of Horizon Family Medical Group, added: “We’re very appreciative that you got involved. You have just put a smile on someone’s face.”
In the past eight years, and before this fund raiser, teacher and organization advisor Jeanine Fogler reported that the High School Interact Club had donated more than $35,000 to worthy causes throughout the world.