Scott Sprung is pictured here with his sixth-grade classmates who participated in the Sharathon. Front row, from left:  Vanessa Jo Parker, Abbie Tinjum, Kara Smith, Jared Zaun. Back row:  Danie Schnase, Danielle Haak, Sprung, Brandon Boppre. (Sheila Anderson/VCTR) 

By Sheila Anderson
Valley City Times-Record

Thanks to the efforts of a sixth-grader at Maple Valley Elementary School in Buffalo, money was raised to help a Page family  offset the expenses of their son’s hospitalization.  
Scott Sprung, a sixth-grader at the school, organized a fundraiser to help the Benjamin Friesz family of Page.  Friesz was hospitalized for more than a month at Fargo’s MeritCare Hospital.
Sprung and his classmates brainstormed to come up with a fundraising plan. Cindy Kapaun, school guidance counselor, worked with Sprung to help him accomplish his goal.
Kapaun said Sprung was extremely persistent in his efforts to organize the event.  
“Every time he’d see me in the hall, he’d say, ‘Well, did you think about it?’” Kapaun said. “He definitely was the push behind it.”
The children wanted to design a project that would be fun and raise the interest of students.  
The fundraiser was based on the theme “To SHORTen Ben’s stay in the hospital. HATS off to his improved health.”  
Students and faculty paid $1 to wear shorts and $1 to wear a hat to school on the day of the Sharathon, with the stipulation that snowpants had to be worn when going outside.   
Classmates helped with informational posters for the fundraiser.  Sprung’s teacher, Jim McDaniel, collected money from the classrooms.  
Sprung said he wanted to do something to help because he knew how expensive it Friesz’s medical bills would be and thought the family would need some extra money.  

For full story, see Thursday's edition of the Valley City Times-Record.