Valentine’s day just took place and this year Alliance High School decided to be an active part of the holiday. The student council at AHS made the decision to sell roses and cake pops, a recipe by Amanda Pruneda, that would be later delivered. They decided that all of the proceeds would go towards the Mark Custer Scholarship. 

Mr. Mark Custer was a phenomenal teacher at Alliance High School for 31 years, changing the lives of many. He passed away on January 2 of 2021 after battling brain cancer for over a year. He was an extremely outgoing and positive person who never failed to put a smile on someone’s face. The decision to dedicate a scholarship to him was very easy. 

In order to raise money for the scholarship, roses were priced at $2 and cake pops were priced at $1. They were available to purchase for nearly a month before school, after school, sometimes during school and even at home sporting events. Over $1,000 was raised from this fundraiser. Saphina Achi, secretary of the Student Council, was one of the helping hands in creating this idea and helping it come to life. In previous years at AHS, there have been small bags of candy passed out, but never anything as inspiring as this! 

Achi believes that the selling of roses and cake pops went extremely well. Achi stated, “there was always at least one person buying something when the stand was open.” When the selling was done, all of the items were passed out. There were over 1,300 cake pops and 13 dozen roses to pass out to students around the school. 

Mrs. Angie Hiemstra was the brains of the operation, putting in several hours throughout many weeks to make this fundraiser perfect. When asked how getting things together went, she said, “It was an extremely labor-intensive project that took three weeks.  During those three weeks, we baked around 80 cakes (with help from many family members), made approximately 1,400 cake pops and spent every school night and weekend forming and dipping the cake pops.”

The SPUD wants to thank Alliance High School students, family members and the loving community of Alliance for supporting, not only Student Council members but also for contributing to the Scholarship in Mark Custer’s remembrance. The official name of the scholarship will be determined at a later date, and solely chosen by his loving wife, Mrs. Custer. Another huge thank you to Amanda Pruneda for sharing her skills, recipes, supplies and time! As well as thanks to Mrs. Hiemstra for bringing this wonderful idea to life.