As the school year comes to a close, senior Mahamed Mahamed said he, alongside seniors Megan Perkins and Hanna Schechter, are organizing a fundraiser in the form of a dodgeball tournament to complete the requirements for the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme.

“The CAS project is basically a required thing for all IB Diploma candidates to do. CAS literally stands for creativity action and service, so for the whole program you do activities involving creativity, action and service,” Mahamed said. “Then you do one project that kind of encompasses it all.”

According to Student Council adviser Sarah Lindenberg, Mahamed’s fundraiser was made possible through a partnership with H2O for Life, a Minneapolis-based non-profit organization.

“It’s actually a local non-profit that works with schools to help build wells, but then they also have a little bit more to their projects too — they do education and sanitation things and education to the community that runs the wells,” Lindeberg said. “So (Mahamed) wanted to do a partnership with that group and decided to do a dodgeball tournament because usually that activity has a pretty good turnout from students at the school.”

Mahamed said the fundraiser, taking place April 18, is designed to involve Park students, teachers, as well as National Honor Society (NHS) and Student Council students looking to help organize the event.

“Pretty much everyone can join and have fun while doing it for a good cause. In terms of the actual project, we want to be a benefit towards the diploma candidates, but at the same time NHS and Student Council will benefit from it in terms of community service,” Mahamed said. “But it’s more open to the whole student body and locals and teachers to raise awareness about the global warming crisis.”

According to Lindenberg, this CAS project remains an opportune way to get involved in the school and connect with other students.

“It’s fun that it’s a reason for students to get together, and it’s another activity in the spring when there aren’t quite as many because Homecoming week is done and Snodaze week is over,” Lindenberg said. “It’s just a fun excuse for students to get together for a good cause too.”

Lindenberg said she enjoys seeing students’ dedication to planning the event.

“I’m excited that it’s a student initiated event completely. The students have done formal proposals and talked to the administration to get approval for the space, they’ve done all of the poster advertising and reservations that they needed to do,” Lindeberg said. “They’ve done all the work so it’s fun to see that come to life.”

According to Mahamed, H2O for Life takes pride in the projects they build with fundraising money by sending photos to the partnering schools.

“What they do is they help (schools) organize a fundraiser and help them along the way, and at the end when the project is built, they’ll kind of send them pictures of what they’re school has done,” Mahamed said.

The dodgeball tournament will be 6-8 p.m. April 18 in the old gym. Students can sign-up for the event in the lunchroom until April 10.