by Divya Kumar
News Editor

As part of an ongoing process to raise money for their International Project, the junior International Baccalaureate class of Coppell High School hosted its final fundraiser on May 24 for the Three Cups of Tea Organization, which raises money to provide education for girls in Middle Eastern countries.

Preceding this event, the students had held two fundraisers: a hot chocolate sale and a garage sale. Obtaining a mere $40 from the hot chocolate fundraiser, a rather spirit-crushing amount, the garage sale helped to improve attitudes, yielding $990.98. Though this number was far past the original $800 goal, which would help sponsor a teacher for one year, the International Project was mandatory for all students, and there were several yet to participate.

“We had been pushing how important these events were, and how participation was mandatory,” group leader junior Mitali Sathaye said. “But there were some kids that still had conflicts with these two things, and so we had to plan another event. Lucky for us, Mr. Puryear already had something in mind.”

True enough, working on his own account, IB sponsor Jeb Puryear created a group for the next idea for a fundraiser. The Four-Letter Word Tournament, in which two participants come in with a four-letter word in mind and have to use a series of strategic letter guessing and arrangement to guess the other player’s word first, was therefore created and was the next idea for a fundraiser. All those who wished to participate in the tournament would come to Dr. Carol Revelle’s, IB CAS coordinator, with a $5 participation fee and four-letter words in mind.

While also providing more revenue for the organization, the Four-Letter Word Tournament also provided those IB students who had yet to participate in any International Project events their last option to do so. Since there were still a hefty number of students left, this opportunity proved beneficial. For those who were still unable to participate, alternate methods of fundraising were required for the student to create on their own time, or they would not graduate with the IB Diploma.

A group of 16 students gathered in Revelle’s room after school on Monday, with their fees in hand. After signing up and then randomly being numbered off into pairs, the students played against each other and the winners played against respective winners from other pairings.

“It was actually a lot more fun than I expected,” IB junior Priyanka Krishnamurthy said. “I came to the tournament with the word “onyx”, expecting that no one would guess it. But some kids had even more random words, which was surprising. It would seem like a word game tournament would be really lame, but this actually wasn’t – it was fun and went towards a good cause. I just wish more people had attended to raise the competition level.”

Along with the incentives of receiving their IB participation hours and donating to charity, the winner of the competition was rewarded with cookies baked by Revelle’s daughter. Upon the end of the tournament, a sum of $80 was collected.

“It was a simple, but fun fundraiser,” Revelle said. “I think that all of the students that played had a really good time, and they had a chance to actually play for a good cause. It’s an easy game to play, but there are definitely some complex strategies involved in winning.”

This tournament marked the end of participation for this year’s International Project. IB students voted on Tuesday, May 25 for their next year International Project, picking an entirely different cause to begin donating to. Regardless of what they choose, the fundraising will all go to the same good cause.

“We had a good run this year with Three Cups of Tea,” Sathaye said. “But it will be cool to start working towards a different cause and see who else we can help next year.”