By Sydra Adams

Wheat Ridge is raising money for a community in Guatemala to increase their educational opportunities that the world has for them by helping with the construction of a computer lab.

This fundraiser is occurring Jan. 14 – Feb.14. Goatees for Guatemala was influenced by senior and National Honor Society Senator Parker McVey’s mission trip to Guatemala during the summer of 2013.

Teachers are receiving the funds based on the goatee students like the best. The teacher who raises the most money will win a reward, which will be a food party for their students.

According to senior and NHS President Michael Coyne, “Mostly men teachers are helping, but women are helping too. The main supporters are Mr. Hartman and Mrs. Pope. We also have some small businesses and restaurants that are sponsoring us and helping collect money. The women teachers can collect money and support a male teacher in their department.”

Coyne also states, “We probably could hit the goal of $10,000 by ourselves.

According to McVey, “We were going to work with Lakewood High school but they had too many fundraisers occurring like the Spoon Contest, that the plan ended up falling through.”

Spanish teacher Michelle Pope says, “If we reach $500 as a department Mr. Hartman will shave his head bald.” Pope also states, “Possibly, we would reach the goal of $10,000 for Guatemala, if our school showed how generous we were to Finnley, when we sent her to Disneyland and there is more generosity in our community. We do a good job of advertising to the community.” Also Pope expressed her feelings when asked about what she thinks would be put in the computer lab by saying, “Any access to technology.  Anything for them to have access to learning literacy would help or they will have a learning curve.”

McVey says, “The fundraiser was influenced by the global need for education, which is pretty prominent especially in South American. Last June when I was given an opportunity to go down there I saw this and was influenced to do something more than just help build a school.” Mcvey explains, “The money is going towards the computers; they already have Wi-Fi. They also already have one existing computer lab. The one they have now has only 31 computers for high school and middle school kids. This would allow so many opportunities for the kids to learn.”

While this fundraiser is slowly coming to an end, WRHS is working hard to reach their goal and increase the knowledge of students just like them in Guatemala. The children in Guatemala will appreciate the love and acknowledgment given by WRHS for giving their community another computer lab to increase many educational opportunities that they probably would not have without the help of people that recognize the misfortunes of many children in other countries like Guatemala.