Junior High Student Gives Back
By Planning Benefit for Hagen
By Martha Slater

Junior high student Haley Lary of Randolph wants to "pay it forward" and return the favor for the community support she received during her battle with cancer.

Lary, who is doing just fine now, has come up with an ambitious idea for her seventh grade GLADCOW service learning project. With help from the school’s Student Council, she is organizing a "Winter Wonderland" semiformal benefit dance for seventh and eighth grade students, with all proceeds going to help a young Northfield girl, Emily Hagen. The dance will take place Friday, Dec. 7 from 6:30-9:30 p.m. in the RUHS cafeteria.

An article by Marjorie Drysdale in the Oct. 25 issue of The Herald profiled 16 year-old Emily, who has participated in the annual summer student musicals at Chandler. Over the past five years, she has received three liver transplants, with two rejections. She now has developed autoimmune hepatitis, and is a patient at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington.

As a result of financial difficulties incurred during a 12-year life and death struggle with her liver failure, Emily and her family are in danger of losing their home. This fall, the close community of Northfield, which rallied three other times for the family, raised enough money to temporarily stop the foreclosure on their home, but the family still needs financial help.

Haley read about Emily’s dilemma, and came up with the idea for the dance, as a way she could help. Her idea turned out to be just the right thing for the service learning project required as part of the seventh grade curriculum. Introduced in Randolph in 1992, the program is designed to foster both student learning opportunities and a positive student involvement with the community.

Haley has enlisted a number of people from the community in the effort, including Randolph Police Dept. Officer Loretta Stalnaker, who has volunteered her time to be on duty during the dance. The Culinary Arts students at RTCC will prepare snack food, and local businesses, including Shaw’s, Family Dollar and others, have donated items such as paper goods. Haley’s aunt, Daisy Schenk, who is a professional photographer, will be on hand to take complimentary photos of the dressed-up students.

Individuals and organizations who would like to help Haley help Emily should call Haley or her mom, Deb Lary, at 728-5540.

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