At the peak of her triumph, Krisbelle Ceballos towered above Principal Karen Singer holding a pan full of fluorescent green slime. At the count of three, she tipped the pan and let the goo fall where it may.
Krisbelle, a sixth-grader at Berwyn Heights Elementary, raised $250 during a walk-a-thon to and around Lake Artemesia benefiting the PTA. For all her hard work, she was awarded one of the top honors for Slime Day on Oct. 23 — sliming Singer.
"I just wanted to help the PTA," Krisbelle said. "So I showed my mom the paper and she helped me raise $250."
Krisbelle was one of 10 students who helped raise nearly $8,600 for the PTA. The PTA's targeted amount was $6,500. In honor of the students' success, the school had a no-uniform day, popcorn for all and a pizza party for the top 10 students.
Students who were able to participate in the sliming were Alexandra Montero, 5; CeJay Hopkins, 8; Steven Williams, 11; Austin Williams, 8; Krisbelle Ceballos, 10; Christian Ceballos, 9; Destiny Williams, 6; Desmond Scott, 10; Kayleigh Bourgeois, 10; and Cindy Barrios, 10.
Fifth-grader Kayleigh raised $100 by getting contribution from her grandfather, mother and her coworkers. She said of all the rewards, the sliming was the best part.
"I'm excited now that I'm going to be able to slime people," Kayleigh said. "[The slime] feels like Jell-O, but worse."
Cindy also had some help raising the money.
"My dad worked hard to raise $100. He made the money for the PTA and now I'm getting the slime," she said.
Kayleigh and Cindy's victims included PTA members Desiree Wolford, Beth Brittan-Powell, Kristen Buker and Cheryl Compton.
"The money goes to all the PTA activities that we do," Buker said. "We have a Halloween party next week, we just had the ‘Hello Husky night' and also the end of the year pool party."
The donations will also benefit arts in the park, a field trip where every student spends one day at Greenbelt Park doing activities with their classmates, teacher appreciation days, the science fair, two magic fairs and part of the field day activities at the end of the year.
Last year, Singer died her hair green in honor of the students' efforts to raise money for the PTA. This year the students wanted "something messier," Singer said.
"It was dirty, it was really dirty," said Singer about the slime, which got stuck in everyone's hair. "It's one of the things that you do to be a good sport for the children. Because when I'm a good sport, they know that they're a good sport. And it was not my favorite thing, and it was not what I chose, but it made them happy and I was happy too."
E-mail Jordan Attebury at jattebury@gazette.net.
