Powerful dots

The founding members of the Pink Polka Dots Guild have a number of things to talk about when they’re together.

School, friends, fashion and music are typical topics for almost any group of three teenage girls. But organizing events to fund pediatric brain tumor research at Children’s Hospital also makes the list for Kellogg Middle School students Sierra Alef-Defoe, Maddy Berkman, and Kelsey Josund of Lake Forest Park.

Since March 2006, the Pink Polka Dots Guild has raised more than $45,000. Their commitment to funding pediatric brain tumor research began after a friend, Sydney Coxon, died of a brain tumor on Feb. 1, 2006, at the age of eleven. The guild was named after her favorite things — pink polka dots.

“We all felt it would be a good idea to do something to try and find a cure because we didn’t want some other family to experience what we went through with Sydney so we came up with the Pink Polka Dot Guild,” Josund, 14, said.

The fundraising efforts began with a garage sale at Brookside Elementary in April 2006. With a $9,000 start, the Guild partnered with Integrated Technologies to organize a golf tournament in September 2007 and raised $24,000. They’ve sold crafts and homemade card sets at the Lake Forest Park Farmers Market and Children’s Hospital. And they have no desire to quit fundraising.

“A million dollars,” Alef-Defoe, 13, said when asked how much money the Guild hopes to fundraise.

“How about we raise $100,000, first,” Josund said.

The Pink Polka Dots Guild expects about 200 people to attend their first dance party from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. tonight, May 16, at Lake City Presbyterian Church. Music requests, dedications, food and even poker will be part of the night, the girls said. The dress code will consist of pink, black and white.

“We wanted something that our friends would want to go to,” Josund said.

The Guild experienced another first this week when they were featured in the “Giving Back” section of the June/July issue of Teen Vogue. Talk of the photoshoot prompts the girls to reminisce about red jeans and a blue dress and express some worry over which photo the magazine will publish.

But although they’re having fun, the girls each remember the day they learned their friend was sick and have unique memories of their friendship with Coxon.

“In fifth grade she dared me to take my pants off and I did,” Berkman, 13, said. “Then I slept over at her house and it snowed and we made snow cones out of the snow.”

Josund said she remembers a time she and Coxon joined their younger sisters in a game of dressing up.

“One dress fit her perfectly and I wanted her to take it home but she didn’t,” she said.

Alef-Defoe recalled a trip to McDonald’s with Coxon.

“She spilled Sprite all over herself and she was drying her pants off with the hand dryer,” Alef-Defoe said.

After the dance party, the Guild will be part of the Lake Forest Park Kid’s Fair on June 15 and work on organizing the second Sydney Coxon Memorial Golf Tournament on September 13. Staying busy with raising money for Children’s Hospital is one way to honor their friend’s memory, the girls agree.

“It’s a good way to honor her memory instead of sitting around being sad about it,” Berkman said.

All funds raised by the Pink Polka Dots Guild directly benefit Dr. Jim Olson’s pediatric brain tumor laboratory in the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Children’s Hospital Research Institute in Seattle.