Kiss the Pig Results!

Johnson students, staff, families, and friends, I can’t thank you enough for all of the support that the Johnson community shared during our Kiss the Pig fundraiser. From the very first idea to the moment the piggies left the building Friday afternoon, every moment this adventure was more successful, exciting, fun, and special because of your help. When all of the jars were totaled, the Johnson community donated $547! With the additional funds donated by our incredible PTO, that means that together we earned more than $1,000 worth of books for the library. WOW!

Our donation total (before PTO’s added funds) is announced to all Johnson students live

During the assembly, after announcing our total amount earned, I took a minute to tell students just what all of their hard-earned donations would be buying. This made the event even more special! Our Kiss the Pig funds will go towards a new set of Discovery Encyclopedias for the library, which will be an exciting and VERY popular addition to our reference collection. The money will also go towards filling some of our most common student requests, like updates to the graphic novel section, new and updated sports books, and a set of almanacs that can be checked out to go home. Many students were even more excited about this news than about the pigs!

Johnson students cheer quietly (so as not to scare the piglets!) as they learn about what their donated funds will buy for the library

Then it was time to share the results. In case you haven’t heard (but, if you’re within ten miles of a Johnson student, you probably have!), the results were very surprising… we had a TIE! Both Ms. Croce and Ms. Rickabaugh earned $186.66 each to put towards new books. This meant that…you guessed it… they both had to pucker up!

Ms. Branson, who also had an impressive number of donations, celebrates her third place win

Ms. Rickabaugh applies lipstick to Ms. Croce so that they’ll both be pucker-up perfect for their piggies

Ms. Rickabaugh gives her piglet a big smooch while the TV cameras look on

Luckily, the wonderful people of Halfpint Hill Farm brought us two potbellied piglets to do the job. The students did an amazing job staying quiet in order to keep our visiting animals safe and happy. I was so proud of their behavior, and so happy to see everyone celebrating together. If you’re interested in seeing the rankings of all 20 staff members that participated, including myself, Mr. Stern, Ms. Thompson, Mr. Carlos, Mr. Chris, and lots of other student favorites, check out the Kiss the Pig Results Presentation here!

Although Johnson students and staff members were certainly excited, it turns out that we weren’t the only ones buzzing about our Kiss the Pig Event! You may notice some big cameras in the pictures that I’m sharing below. That’s because the assembly was covered by both NBC 29 and CBS Newsplex with cameras and live interviews. Both featured the story on their 5:00 and 6:00 PM news Friday, March 28th, and both stories went up live online. In addition, Charlottesville Family Magazine will be covering the fundraiser for their next issue. In case you missed it, the NBC story is still up, and you can view it here. In case that isn’t exciting enough, the story was also picked up and shared by School Library Digest’s ScoopIt page, where it was shared, Pinned, linked, and Scooped all over the world! Way to go!

Cameras from NBC 29 and CBS Newsplex get their best shots of the piglets and the happy winners, as well as our wonderful helpers from Halfpint Hill Farm

Ms. Rickabaugh gives a live interview with CBS Newsplex about the Johnson Library Kiss the Pig fundraiser

A screen shot of our Kiss the Pig story from NBC29 being shared internationally via School Library Digest's ScoopIt page — A screen shot of our Kiss the Pig story from NBC29 being shared internationally via School Library Digest’s ScoopIt page

Ms. Croce, Ms. Rickabaugh, and I smile for the camera after a long and fun afternoon

Student volunteers got to stay behind after the assembly and have some one-on-one time with the piglets from Halfpint Hill Farm

Ms. Rickabaugh and I celebrate a successful fundraiser by posing with both piglets and a farmer from Halfpint Hill Farm

Thank you so much to everyone that helped with this event – Johnson staff and students, Ms. Rickabaugh and her class, the Johnson PTO, and HalfPint Hill Farm. And a big thank you goes to all of our Johnson community members for their continued support, financial and otherwise. Thanks to you, I think we can put this one in the books as a huge success!

– Miss Messham