The Make a Wish Foundation is a nationwide company that grants sick childrens’ wishes before they become too ill to complete them. On a smaller scale, East’s Make a Wish Club works to raise money for the aforementioned foundation.

“Basically, we raise money for the actual Make a Wish Foundation. We do fundraisers and then we send the money to the foundation,” said Madeline Rotella (’09), officer of the club.

Rotella works with her co-officer, Meera Khan, and 30 other members of the club to carry out the numerous fundraisers. Rotella said that one of the club’s two biggest fundraisers is the Wing Bowl teacher pie-in-the-face contest.

“First we think of a list of teachers who would actually volunteer to [get pied] and then we send an email out to every faculty member,” explained Rotella.

The nominated teachers each receive a designated jar where students can place donations. The teacher with the highest donation gets pied at Wing Bowl.

Rotella said, “We picked Mr. Musimecci because we know that everyone likes him. We just try to think of teachers that the kids are going to want to give money to.”

Aside from the pie-in-the-face contest, the second biggest fundraiser for the Make a Wish Club is crane making. The students made origami cranes to sell in order to receive donations.

Starting just five years ago, the club strives to collect more money each year, with pretzel sales, bake sales and their two unique fundraisers.

Rotella said, “We don’t set goals. It’s something our advisor decided. Anything is good.”