Fund-raiser gets cheerleaders tossed

Associated Press

GIG HARBOR — Four incoming freshman girls have been removed from the high school cheerleading squad for holding a fund-raiser without school permission.

Coach Lindsay Cady said the girls’ May 19 car wash at an empty Tacoma car lot improperly used the school’s name to raise money.

"This was not a sanctioned school activity," Cady wrote in a letter to each of the ousted cheerleaders May 23. "Your actions constitute fraud."

"I kind of feel like a criminal," cheerleader Chelsey Nesbitt, 14, told The News Tribune. "They’re telling me I’m a fraud. I’m like 14 here. … I don’t know what ‘fraud’ means. I’m a blond. I don’t even go to that school yet, and I’m already in trouble there."

The cheerleaders say they were told it would be OK to go ahead with the fund-raiser as long as parents supervised the event. The girls said they spent about five hours in the rain, washing mostly relatives’ cars, and raised about $80.

They were raising the money to help pay for their uniforms and an upcoming cheerleading camp.

Cady said she had good reason to postpone the car wash.

"I did specifically tell them not to do it that weekend. My concerns were for their safety," Cady said. "They could not tell me specifically whose parents were going to be there, and they could not specifically tell me where it was going to be held."

The high school’s assistant principal, Lillian Ebersole, said students who conduct fund-raisers on behalf of their schools must follow specific guidelines and get school approval.

The cheerleaders didn’t do that and didn’t turn in the money they raised to the school’s bookkeeper, as they are required under state rules, Ebersole said.