Eagle Week has been filled with themes and fundraising events at Dakota Ridge High School. This event, that started on January 31, 2025, is led by National Honor Society (NHS) president Ana Jankovic, and will run through February 7, 2025. The money raised will go to Project Sol Flower, an organization that helps cancer or other critically ill patients ages 18-26 to provide support, care and bucket list wishes that Dakota Ridge decided to fund this year during Eagle Week.
The week started on January 31 with a purple themed assembly to support the main color scheme for Project Sol Flower. The assembly was held to encourage student excitement and bring awareness to the fundraising objectives. The following week has been filled with themes students can participate in such as “Pajama day” or “anything but a backpack day” and so on. These themes are listed on the website Jankovic created for Eagle Week. There are bake sales in the hallway and even raffles students can participate in. There will also be a sale of merchandise such as T-shirts you could invest in to help raise money for Project Sol Flower. On January 31, Youth Night, after school at the boys varsity basketball, there was a half court shot students were able to participate in, costing $1 to be added into the raffle.
“I’m honestly excited for the week because we planned a bunch of things,” NHS vice president Josephine Tran said. “I am excited to see all the events playout.”
Eagle Week used to be called Wish Week due to the fact that DRHS supported the Make a Wish Foundation. Now that the fundraising organization has changed, Jankovic decided to change the name to Eagle Week, not just for Project Sol Flower, but for the reason of opening Eagle Week up to more fundraising organizations in the future.
Project Sol Flower was founded by the daughter of one of DRHS P.E. teacher Amy Ziegler’s friends. The daughter had cancer, and that led her mother, Kaydee Koch, to notice that children with cancer or other chronic diseases lost support after becoming adults at 18. She also realized that those children that lost support also lost the privilege of getting granted a bucket list. Without a plan for these things, Kaydee Koch decided to make an organization that would allow 18-26 year olds to be able to have support and get their wishes granted. They take donations, and their goal is to support and care for these adults.
Students can participate and help this foundation by participating in the money raising events like the bake sales and raffles throughout the week. They also can also go to the Project Sol Flower website to make a donation or even become a volunteer.
Jankovic and the rest of NHS would like to raise at least one thousand dollars by the end of the week.
“We, ourselves, are so incredibly blessed with everything we have, and really just being mindful, and I really hope people participate,” Jankovic said. “We just want to spread positivity and kindness as always.”
