A high school soccer team in the southwest suburbs is using a golden toilet, or “pot of gold,” to raise money and awareness about colon cancer and encourage their community to get screened.
“A lot of people just walk by and they laugh or they stare, but then they walk by again and then would laugh and they stare, then they walk by again, and then they're like, 'Okay, what is this for?' Like they're interested,” said Iggie Escamilla, a senior on the team.
The Bolingbrook High School varsity soccer team is using the gold toilet to tout a “split the pot” raffle, carting the toilet to football games and local events to raise awareness about colorectal cancer, which is on the rise in young people.
“It's the cancer that my dad had and my grandfather also had. So it's like, kind of like emotional for me, but at first I was like, (the toilet) is kind of funny,” Jared Ibarra, a senior on the team, said.
On Aug. 11, at the Lyons Soccer Complex in La Grange, the Bolingbrook High School soccer team beat out other area schools in several field day competitions, winning the chance to fill the “Pot of Gold.”
The “Field Day Olympics” was part of the lead-up to the BODYARMOR Series, which features a high school boys soccer tournament in Waukegan on Sept. 14, when more than 100 high schools compete on the same day.
Chicago-based Dude Wipes is a presenting partner of the BODYARMOR series and co-founder Ryan Meegan said the company will match all the donations that the Bolingbrook team brings in for the “Pot of Gold” raffle, to show support for proactive screenings.
Health & Wellness
“It'll shed light to family members that are around that 40- to 50-year-old age, especially in men,” Meegan said.
Each raffle ticket costs $2. After the drawing on Sept. 14, the “pot of gold” will be split three ways among the Bolingbrook soccer program, the Golden Ticket winner and the Colon Club, a non-profit that helps young adults with colorectal cancer.
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“We had an old coach from Bolingbrook. He came in to speak to us a couple days after we won the toilet and he told us that his father actually passed from colon cancer. So it really hit us hard and made us want to raise even more money for colon cancer,” said Alex Jarszak, a senior on the soccer team.
The community has responded to the team’s call to fill this pot. The team is close to reaching their fundraising goal, with about a week to go.
“We're hoping to push up to $3,000 this week. So we're definitely well over $2,000 and we're gonna have the golden pot in our cafeteria, encouraging staff members to stop by and encouraging the students to get involved and also spread the message,” said Nick Trotter, the head varsity soccer coach.
For the past few weeks, the soccer team has taken the “pot of gold” around town, to football games and soccer tournaments.
“Sometimes they donate. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes when we ask for donations, they kind of ignore us, but that's fine, as long as we're getting awareness out there, they're going to think about it, right?” Jarszak said.
“We want to win on the game, but we also want to save lives out there as well, and this was a great opportunity to do that,” Escamilla said.
The raffle drawing will be held on Sept. 14. For more information, you can click here.
