Denim Day at Saugus High helps net money to fight breast cancer

SAUGUS – Students at Saugus High School wear jeans to school every day. But when teachers start wearing jeans, something must be going on. That was the case Friday as the Saugus High Student Council held its annual Lee National Denim Day breast cancer fundraiser.”The students all wear denim,” said English Curriculum Specialist and Student Council Adviser Jane Osgood. “Of course they always wear jeans anyway so it’s no big deal, but it’s especially a big deal for the teachers because they don’t usually wear jeans to school. They all pay $5 or whatever they’d like to contribute.”Student Council members collected money from students also and went table to table during lunch.Tenth-grader Joe Foreman was counting a stack of dollar bills Friday afternoon and estimated they raised around $200 so far at the high school alone.”It’s important because you need to raise money so they can find new cures for it,” said Foreman.The Oaklandvale, Waybright and Ballard schools also participate in Denim Day, and the money raised by all the schools is pooled together. Osgood said they usually raise around $500 every year, which goes toward breast cancer research.Saugus High principal Joe Diorio said Denim Day is the school’s biggest breast cancer fundraiser.”We do it district-wide,” said Diorio. “I think it’s important that the kids have a cause to support and I believe there’s been issues with family members and staff members who have had breast cancer. I think it’s a great way to show support for a great cause.”According to the Lee National Denim Day website, donations go to Lee Laboratories, which researches new breast cancer treatments, and the Cancer Support Community, which provided emotional and social support to cancer patients.Senior Student Council President Olivia Singer said Friday marked one of the best Denim Day efforts she has been involved with.”I thought we did pretty good this year,” said Singer. “This year we went around to every single table at lunch instead of just having kids come up to us. We put kids more on the spot and it actually worked. We got a lot more money than in past years.”Even with the economy lagging, Singer said students still donated what they could.”We did have kids say, ‘I don’t have any money,'” said Singer. “But even if they gave a quarter, they gave what they had.”Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected]. You can follow him on Twitter @MattTempesta.