Chesterton celebrated their homecoming on Friday night by with traditional celebrations and a special fundraiser for charity.
What made Chesterton’s homecoming parade unique to the area is their inclusion of tiny houses. The school includes themed playhouses amongst the rest of the floats, which serves as a project for Chesterton students and an opportunity to raise money for charity. This marks the third year where Chesterton has decided to make playhouses for their own homecoming parade. The school assigns five playhouses to be built - four for the high school grades and one for another school within the school corporation.
The playhouses are put together by Chesterton’s Building Trades program over a few weeks and all of the supplies for the houses are donated by local businesses. The classes then choose a theme for their house and shortly after the houses are painted during “Paint Day”. The painting of the houses happens a few days before the houses are shown off. This year most the houses all went with a children’s theme, having them painted with things like Doctor Seuss characters and Mikey Mouse.
What makes this year so special with the playhouses is that all of the money being donated are to local charities. After the houses made their final stop on CHS’s football field each house was put up on eBay and all of the money they’re purchased for will go to the class’ charity of choice. Robert Blumenthal, Assistant Principal to Chesterton High School, said that making the charities local had a big impact on how the kids saw the playhouses.
“When we had Paint Night this past Wednesday all of the charities came out and helped because they’re all in the area. The charities got to see the houses as they were being built, and the kids got a direct response from the people who will be benefiting from the auction.” Blumenthal also said that the charities donated to the kids in return, “One charity brought cookies, another charity ended up painting for a couple hours, and another ended up donating costumes for the parade. Everyone has benefited from this and we’ll keep doing it from now on.”
Lillian Kearby, a senior and was a part of the Best Playhouse winner, said that she agrees with Blumenthal’s sentiment. “I think it’s a great cause, it’s a great way to raise some funds for charity. Everyone gets involved and everyone loves doing it. Not only does it pump up the crowd but it allows us to give money to an important charity like the Literacy Foundation.”
Overall the playhouses are a great running tradition to Chesterton High School’s Homecoming Parade, but also a great way to incorporate giving into so many student’s best night of the year.