A Lil’ Eagle Fair History: Scott Grass

DSC_0117One of our school’s signature events has become our spring Eagle Fair.  Eagle Fair is a community-wide event that features family friendly activities, great food, a 5K Run, and live music.  This year we hope to serve about 2,500 community guests.  Eagle Fair requires a willing group of dedicated student leaders to organize the event, along with the entire high school student body and parent volunteers to accomplish the mission of the event.

DSC_0106One might wonder how this event came to be.  Was it just another event dreamed up by the school’s administration or PTO?  Did we view the month of May as a boring month so we needed another event to keep us entertained?  Hardly…  The history of Eagle Fair provides us a wonderful example of community, creativity, and student ownership.

In 2004, our school started a spring fundraiser called Eagle Fit.  We asked all students to approach individuals to contribute, and our rallying cry was, “Students Helping Students” as all of the proceeds brought in by our students went directly to our Student Tuition Assistance Fund.  Overall, this event was a tremendous success, especially in our elementary school as the younger students had a distinct “cuteness” advantage over the high school students.  The following year we determined to follow up Eagle Fit with year two.  During the competition, the school administration was approached by two of our seniors, Luke Helmer and Rebecca Thomas, who maintained that while they were cool with supporting the school, having high school students approach adults for money was a little awkward and ineffective.  These two seniors implored the administration to consider hosting a County Fair type event and have the proceeds continue to go to the Student Tuition Assistance Fund continuing the focus and mission of students helping students.

DSC_0037In the late fall of 2005, I approached several upperclassmen to participate in a planning committee to consider hosting an event that would replace Eagle Fit in the high school.  In January of 2006, the idea of “Eagle Fair” was conceived by students Luke Fausett, Trenton Flora, Emily Helmer, Ashley Hagen, and Jacob Johnson.  Between the months of February and April, five committed students organized, planned, and committed themselves to running an effective student-led event that sought to help others as well as provide our community a family-friendly event to enjoy together.  Along with Luke Helmer and Rebecca Thomas, those five students were true pioneers!  They ventured into unchartered territory, and they will forever be linked to Eagle Fair.

May 8, 2015, will serve as the 12th Eagle Fair event!  Over the past eleven years, the Lord has allowed our students to raise over $100,000 that has gone to provide families and students the wonderful opportunity to attend Faith Christian School.  This year we plan to have a fish fry, smoked pulled pork, laser tag, pony rides, live music, a 5K run with close to 300 runners, a new Kid K run, and a lot of fun games and activities for all ages.  On May 9, we will have our 2nd Annual Eagle Ride along with our Eagle Car Wash at several locations in our community.  I hope that you and your family will be able to join us this year. Will you also pray for these events and that we will serve our community well and successfully meet our financial and program goals?

There have been some amazing memories from the past Eagle Fairs and so many tremendous volunteers, supporters, and friends that have helped Eagle Fair to develop and evolve into what it is today.  Pray for GREAT weather on May 8th and plan to join us for the various events and fun activities as we seek to support “Students Helping Students”.2015 Eagle Run-Ride logo

Dawn Oliver
Dawn is an Administrative Assistant at Faith Christian School.