Charles City eighth graders prepare to put on Hollywood-themed Trivia Night annual fundraiser

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Charles City eighth graders are working hard to put on a night of entertainment as the class prepares for the fifth annual Trivia Night fundraising event.

Settling on Hollywood for this year’s theme, about 20 students have been spending their free time getting everything ready to host an evening of trivia contests with a red carpet flair.

“A lot of them have given up their study halls to do the work,” said eighth-grade teacher Amanda Rahmiller. “They are a stellar group.”

Scheduled for Saturday, March 4, in the Comet Gym, the Trivia Night event will invite teams of six to enjoy unlimited appetizers and soft drinks and test their knowledge on a range of trivia subjects across 10 rounds. Though the theme of the night is Hollywood, there will be plenty of different topics covered by the questions. Doors open at 6:15 p.m. and the games begin at 7.

Dividing up their preparation tasks, the students split up into groups to handle the food, the decorations, and the donation calls, each team doing its part to ensure a successful event.

On the creative side of things, the decorations team has spent its time making props and designing décor to recreate the glitz and glamour of Hollywood with classroom resources. From turning recycled cardboard into lettered decorations and silhouettes, to designing customized movie tickets, the decoration team has put a lot of work into bringing Hollywood to Charles City.

Meanwhile, the food preparation team has been setting the menu and purchasing ingredients in bulk while the donations team calls on local businesses for their support.

Organizing the Trivia Night event offers students a unique educational experience as it makes them develop and utilize real-world skills that aren’t generally taught in classrooms, Rahmiller said.

From budgeting for and seeking out cost-effective ways to fill out the menu to learning how to make deals and ask for donations, and sometimes having to take “no” for an answer, the students get a taste of adult-world interactions as they prepared for the show, she said.

“You have to be prepared to talk,” said Lyla Rogstad.

“It’s been really fun to get out of our comfort zones and do something out of the ordinary,” said Camryn Hoeft.

The event has also taught the students a lesson in working with each other, sharing ideas, resolving disagreements, and forming a consensus with fellow students that they may otherwise not usually work with, Rahmiller said.

“We had to come together for ideas,” said Miyah Stevenson.

Along with being an evening of fun, the trivia event serves as a fundraiser to support the students’ work at the Riverside Cemetery. For several years now the St. Charles Cemetery Association has partnered with Charles City eighth graders to raise money for projects at the cemetery, especially the cemetery’s chapel, bringing in nearly $50,000 so far to make improvements to the building.

Another current project the class is working on, unrelated to the Trivia Night fundraiser, is creating a series of videos highlighting some of the historic persons buried in the cemetery, which will be matched with QR codes mounted near the tombstones that will link visitors to the information when they scan the codes with their cellphone cameras.

Currently, 26 teams have signed up to participate in Trivia Night, but Rahmiller says she would like to see at least four more to fill out the tables. Rahmiller is also still accepting items that can be donated for a silent auction and can be contacted at 641-245-5132.