Chris Stedile
Castlegar News
Every year the graduating class at Stanley Humphries Secondary School raises funds for their Dry Grad celebrations.
The main form of fundraising has been selling poinsettias and this year the profits were through the roof.
After paying back the cost of purchasing the flowers the total profit was just over $12,000.
The students and parents worked together to unload, promote and sell the flowers and now have plenty of cash to create a fantastic dry grad experience.
Grad parent president Sue Heaton-Sherstobitoff played a large role in organizing this fundraiser and is overjoyed with the results.
“It was fun,” she said. “It wasn’t stressful or anything. We had a really organized system. It’s just the unloading that is the really tricky part because there’s so many pieces for such a massive order.”
Over 1,900 poinsettias, holiday tropical baskets and Christmas greenery baskets arrived in a large semi truck from Devry GreenHouses where the team spent a good portion of two days unloading and sorting them.
“As time permitted during the day, with classes and such, they’d come and help us parents,” Heaton-Sherstobitoff continued. “We do the sorting and everyone comes and picks up their orders and everything runs smoothly.”
The only hiccup she encountered was a few months back during the teachers’ strike.
“It was a little tricky this year with the labour dispute with the teachers but I was able to get everything out in September with the grads, so everything has been sold for a couple months already.”
The salesmanship from the grad class was outstanding, Heaton-Sherstobitoff said.
The poinsettias were sold to people from all over the West Kootenays.
This year’s grads “had their feelers out everywhere,” she said.