When Seattle special education teacher Kevin Zelko began a fund-raising quest to buy Seahawks jerseys for some of the neediest students at his inner-city elementary school, he imagined a small, do-it-yourself project. He hoped to raise about $1,000 and provide new jerseys for maybe 20 kids.
What he got was something much bigger — much, much bigger.
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Zelko teaches at Kimball Elementary School. He also works some weekends lugging 70 pounds of booze up and down the aisles of Seattle's CenturyLink Field as a beer vendor at Seahawks home games. Fridays are spirit days at Kimball, and students are encouraged to wear the jerseys of their favorite sports teams. That overwhelmingly means the Seahawks these days, as Seattle's NFL team is one win away from a Super Bowl berth.
But the spirit day tradition presents a problem for many of the kids at Kimball, where 70% of students qualify for the school's free lunch program due to low family income. The students whose parents can't afford to buy them jerseys feel left out, particularly now, with the team Seattle's hottest conversation topic.
"Getting to participate with your peers in what everyone is excited about — and right now that's the Seahawks — is a huge deal," Zelko told Mashable.
So Zelko hatched a plan. On Monday, he started a crowdfunding campaign on the site GoFundMe to raise money to buy jerseys for some of Kimball's neediest students. He set a goal of $1,000. When we covered the campaign on Wednesday, it had raised about $600.
By Friday afternoon, the fund was up to $9,094 — plus an additional $9,000 offline donation from a local wealth management investor.
The contributions aren't just from Seahawks fans or Seattle locals, though. Money has poured in from as far away as England, Germany and Hong Kong. Fans of the San Francisco 49ers — who play the Seahawks on Sunday for a Super Bowl berth — have sent sweet notes along with their own donations. Meanwhile, Ellen DeGeneres, the HLN channel and a host of local media outlets have picked up the story.
"It's just really fascinating to take an idea and work to achieve it, then see it turn into something much bigger than the original idea," Zelko says.
The cash surplus has required a slight tweak in plans, however. Instead of giving the jerseys to just a handful of kids at Kimball this Friday, Zelko now plans to get jerseys for every one of the school's 447 students. With jerseys costing $51 apiece, the fund is still about $5,000 short — but given the momentum Zelko's campaign has generated since Wednesday, he says he's "pretty positive" they'll get there. The only difficulty will be finding enough kids' jerseys in stock at the Seahawks team store, where Zelko gets an employee discount, in time.
Zelko wants the school to present the jerseys to students at an assembly next week. If the Seahawks win on Sunday, that'll make it a perfect gift just in time for the Super Bowl. Zelko hopes to get the team involved in the giveaway, too, perhaps with players or coaches attending.
But — ever the loyal Seahawks fan — he hasn't lost track of some priorities.
"It'll be Super Bowl week, so the last thing I want to do is distract [Seahawks quarterback] Russell Wilson with something like this," he says. "I still want that Super Bowl ring."