Liberty High School donates to Valley Children’s
Tyler Takeda/The Madera Tribune
With the Liberty football team watching, football player Kaleb Roth and Valley Children’s Hospital’s Bethany Sowell hold a check for $4,000 from Beyond the Game initiative that donated money for each point the football team scored this season.
In the spirit of the season, students at Liberty High School gave two checks to Valley Children’s Hospital during an assembly at the school.
Liberty High School, through the S4C (Students 4 Community) club, donated $4,600 to Valley Children’s Hospital, along with 330 letters of encouragement written by the students.
Sarah Folsom and Josh Bailey delivered the letters and a $600 check to Bethany Sowell, Valley Children’s development lead, external development foundation. The letters and check were a part of the school’s letter-a-thon where students wrote letters and donated money to the hospital.
“Thank you for participating in the fundraisers,” Sowell told the students. “Thank you for helping us be the best in the Valley.”
In addition, Kaleb Roth, in front of the Liberty High School football team, presented a $4,000 check to VCH as part of the Beyond the Game initiative.
“Beyond the Game is an idea I had after my freshman football season, but I waited until this season to implement it,” Roth said. “I would wait until I was older and had more respect with the team. It was an initiative I started to get the community involved.”
Beyond the Game invited community members to donate money in correspondence for how many points the football team scored. The team scored 383 points and rounded it up to $4,000.
“We had multiple companies involved,” Roth said. “I had a family friend from down south that gave very generously, a few family members, a few individuals in the community, definitely, at least three to five Ranchos businesses gave.”
Roth went throughout the Madera Ranchos community to gather donors for his cause.
“It’s really humbling to give that gift,” Roth said. “I didn’t think it would be that successful. I didn’t know how people would respond. I think everyone who heard about it were very gracious and generous with their giving and participation. I’m just glad it was successful.”
Roth, a junior, hopes to continue Beyond the Game next year and have it become a tradition for other players to help with gathering donations.
“I would like to make this a yearly tradition,” Roth said. “I’m only here for only one more year. After that, we’ll see how that will keep going. I’m happy I got through this year successfully. I hope to make it more popular. I hope more people will hear about it and it will grow naturally.”
Roth did his part, leading the Hawks with 15 touchdowns this season while rushing for a team-high 1,050 yards and earning first team All-North Sequoia League honors.
“I did my best to make it a hard goal to reach.”
