Eating Pizzas Can Save Babies’ Lives

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Aditya Bhalla, now an alumni of the Academies@Englewood started the March of Dimes club on the DMAE campus three years ago to help raise money for premature babies and students loved the cause, especially Gayatri Ganesh. For the past two years, Gayatri “Gayu” Ganesh, now a junior, has taken over as president of the club and has been working hard to make a greater profit each year to give to mothers and babies in need.

One new thing that Gayu suggested for the club this year is a California Pizza Kitchen (CPK) FUNdraiser. Members and supporters of the club can present a flyer when they purchase their meal and earn 20% of the bill for the March of Dimes charity. The first event is scheduled to take place this month with the actual date to be determined.

“The California Pizza Kitchen FUNdraiser is a great opportunity for our club to raise more money this year for premature babies and meet our goal of raising $1,500 by the April 2015 March of Dimes Walk,” said Gayu enthusiastically.

In addition to this major event, the club is looking forward to its annual fundraisers such as the Lollipop Grams, the Easter Chocolate Bunny Grams, Bracelet sales. Usually, the sales do well, but this year the club is hoping to increase the amount of profit greatly, especially with a lot of newcomers to the club helping.

“I joined the club because the cause is close to my heart since I have a few friends that were born prematurely,” freshman Alexandra Dachenko said. “Plus I knew about March of Dimes before I even came to this school, so I went with the most familiar thing,” added Alexandra smiling.

Cub members are excited for the CPK Fundraiser, and club advisor, Crystal Ponticello, is behind their effort.

“The goal every year is to always do better and raise more money and I think that this time, Gayu has done an exceptional job with organizing the California Pizza Kitchen event,” Dr. Ponticello said. “I think that it will be a great success and it may even become an annual thing,” she added optimistically.