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Post Prom ‘22 hosts unique fundraiser

On Friday, Feb. 11, members of the community gathered at the Huntington County Community Learning Center to raise “bail” donations, which were then given to the Huntington North High School Post Prom Committee. Criminal Justice students decorated a Learning Center classroom to look like a jail cell and participants made calls to raise donations. Seated around the table are (from left) Huntington Police Chief Cory Boxell, City Director of Operations Annette Carroll, HNHS Principal Rief Gilg, Sheriff Chris Newton and Mayor Richard Strick.
On Friday, Feb. 11, members of the community gathered at the Huntington County Community Learning Center to raise “bail” donations, which were then given to the Huntington North High School Post Prom Committee. Criminal Justice students decorated a Learning Center classroom to look like a jail cell and participants made calls to raise donations. Seated around the table are (from left) Huntington Police Chief Cory Boxell, City Director of Operations Annette Carroll, HNHS Principal Rief Gilg, Sheriff Chris Newton and Mayor Richard Strick. Photo by Katelynn Farley.

The Huntington North High School students in Terry Stoffel’s Criminal Justice class were given a unique opportunity to help raise funds for the upcoming Post Prom – by hosting a “Jail and Bail” event with some well-known names and faces acting as inmates for the day, tasked with the goal of raising funds for Post Prom 2022.  

Participants, such as Huntington County commissioners, city employees, Huntington North High School and Huntington County Community School Corporation employees and others were presented with a “warrant for arrest” and arrived to the classroom, which is located at the Huntington County Community Learning Center, on Friday, Feb. 11, during a morning or afternoon shift depending on their schedules. Participants were then taken to the portion of the classroom that had been transformed into a makeshift jail cell, complete with a metal detector and a desk for the “inmates” to sit at while making their calls for their bail money. Each warrant read:

“There is probably cause to believe that said defendant did knowingly, intentionally and voluntarily plan to help the HNHS Class of 2022 have an excellent Post Prom, thereby adding to the enrichment of their senior year.”

The next paragraph included each participant’s name and then an order to “raise funds for the HNHS Class of 2022 post prom committee.” The participants were to “remain incarcerated at the learning center until able to post the required bond.”

Bond was set in the amount of at least $200. Once particpants had been checked in by one of the students in the classroom and had taken a “mug shot”, they got to work making calls to collect their bail money. All donations were collected and tracked by the “warden” Elizabeth Kitchen.

Some of the participants, such as Huntington County Commissioners Tom Wall and Rob Miller, decided to post their mug shots to their Facebook pages in order to get the word out about their predicament and request donations from the community. Others called friends and family, or brought their donations to the Jail and Bail event.

As of the end of Friday, Feb. 11, Stoffel reports that $8,500 has been raised for Post Prom. Anyone who is interested in making a donation may do so by sending a check to the following address:
HNHS Post Prom
450 MacGahan St.,
Huntington, IN 46750.
Make checks payable to HNHS Post Prom.