With students and adults together, the Cranbury School raised not only awareness about heart health but thousands of dollars for the American Heart Association (AHA).
Through a month-long program that ended on March 13 and a fun basketball matchup between the Cranbury Police Department, students and the Cranbury community raised $5,850 to support the efforts of the AHA, which is a nonprofit dedicated to fighting heart disease and strokes.
“We had a goal of $5,000, and our total was $5,850,” said Erika Shulman, a lead organizer of the fundraiser and Cranbury School physical education teacher. “Very proud of our kids.”
Shulman added it was very heartwarming to have the support of the community and exceed their goal.
“Something I have said about the Cranbury community since I got here is how they are able to come together, and they are accepting of so many different things across all kinds of boards,” she said.
“So, when you propose something like this to raise money for an organization and help people who need it, they jump in 100 percent. This reinforces that the statement holds true.”
Part of the program this year featured a basketball game between the school’s girls’ and boys’ varsity basketball team and Cranbury police officers.
The evening of fun, food and basketball was held in early March in the school’s gymnasium and resulted in the varsity team beating the officers, 33-32, on March 4. More importantly, the evening raised about $1,500 for the school’s AHA fundraising goal.
“It was a win for everyone,” exclaimed Jennifer Diszler, chief school administrator and principal. “A win for the students and a win for the American Heart Association. I believe we just created a new annual tradition at Cranbury School. We look forward to holding the game again next year.”
Proceeds from the game were raised through the $5 admission tickets and the PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) snack stand.
“It was an overall amazing night, successful night,” Shulman said. “I think it is nice when the kids get to see the officers in plain clothes and in a different light and environment than when they are patrolling. I think the kids had a blast and the officers had a good time, [as well as] the community members, families and everyone that came out to support.”
Shulman was happily surprised at the amount of money they were able to raise.
“Trying to make this a fundraising event I decided that $5 a person was reasonable,” she explained. “I didn’t want to ask too much of people. There were plenty of people who came in and obviously gave more than $5, which was not asked of them, and they did it from the kindness of their hearts.”
Shulman has already spoken with Cranbury Police Chief Giuseppe Dechiara about next year’s game and date.
“He even made the comment, ‘As long as I’m chief you have got us in,’ so we are definitely looking to make this an annual thing,” she said. “It is going to be a new Cranbury tradition.”
Last year, Shulman, a member of the Cranbury Municipal Alliance, brought up raising funds for AHA last year.
Former Cranbury Police Chief Michael Owens, who retired earlier this year, thought of the idea to have a basketball game with the police department’s help with raising some funds for the nonprofit. He connected Shulman and Sgt. John Glennon and they started moving forward with the idea for this year.
With the police department on board, they were able to bring the basketball game to life.
The AHA is near and dear to Shulman’s heart. She had lost her father to heart disease and immediately said “yes” to getting involved with fundraising for the AHA when Diszler brought the opportunity to the school’s physical education teachers.
Shulman connected with Heather Lopardo, a regional director for AHA, who works with schools to do fundraisers for the nonprofit. The 2024 year was the first year of Shulman doing a fundraiser for AHA, which as a nonprofit invests in research for cardiovascular cerebrovascular disease.
AHA has 35 million volunteers and supporters dedicated to improving heart health and bringing awareness to heart disease, a leading cause of death for Americans.
Shulman made a lot of changes to the program for 2025. Planning for this year’s month-long fundraising program began back in September. She worked with Assistant Principal Jennifer Casazza and fellow physical education teacher Cathy Elliot.
She met monthly or bi-monthly, most of the communication went between Shulman and Lopardo.
Cranbury School clubs made posters for the month-long fundraising program featuring slogans and information, as well as the basketball game flyers.
Buddy classrooms kicked off the program this year with about 400 red hearts created and hanging around in the hallways. Older students created them with younger students with uplifting messages.
“There was a lot of communication sent home whether it was physical flyers or using the school communicator and making morning announcements,” Shulman said. “We tried to reach everyone in every way.”
For the final days of the program on March 12 and March 13, the school’s physical education unit was paused to celebrate the end of the fundraiser.
Shulman explained that they did heart healthy stations instead. A schedule was created so that all of the kids in the school over those two days went down to the gym to celebrate the end of the fundraiser.
