The Willow River School district is raising money to send four students to the LifeSmart National Competition in Florida in order to represent Minnesota.
According to the LifeSmarts website, the program is apart of the National Consumers League that works to teach young people consumer advocacy skills. They work to teach students grade 9 through 12 personal finance, health and safety, technology, the environment, and consumer rights and responsibilities.
Melissa Johnson, Family and Consumer Science teacher for Willow River schools, told WCMP that students from the district have been apart of LifeSmarts since its inception in 1994. Students from Willow River Schools first competed online through a series of quizzes where the highest scoring students then went onto compete in a state competition in early February.
At the National Competition, the students will compete against other schools in the country in a game show-style competition.
The district is currently looking to raise money in order to travel to Orlando, Florida to compete in the LifeSmarts National Competition. They already have around $1,700 raised out of their goal of $3,500. Johnson created a Kickstarter in order to help raise the remaining $1,800.
This year four sophomore students are looking to travel to Orlando to compete. Johnson said that this team is unique because of their age.
"They're young, they're only tenth graders so they have two more years of competing that they could qualify for, and they've been friends since they been friends since they were in early elementary school together," said Johnson.
If you are interested in donating, you can send checks made out to Willow River Schools directly to the district, or you can donate directly to a Kickstarter that has been set up by Johnson.
Photo courtesy of Willow River schools.