Jacob: Spanish Fork High's "Little Don"

Can you imagine how Sara and I felt last week when Spanish Fork High's track & field coach, Alyssa Larsen, approached us out of the blue and said, "Our principal, student body officers, and club officers at SFHS would like to dedicate all of their fundraisers all year long to Jacob." Whoa! How do you respond to such a generous proposal?

"We'd like to make Jacob our 'Little Don' for the year," she continued. (The mascot for SFHS is the "Dons," which, as I understand it, is a Spanish gentleman, as in "Don" Quixote, "Don" Juan, or "Don" Giovanni. So essentially they are dubbing Jacob their "little gentleman"). She brought over a little Jacob-sized SFHS hoody and gave it to him to make it all official.

A week ago last Friday, a picture of Jacob was shown at their school assembly and the idea of helping raise funds for Jacob's treatments was officially adopted by the student body. Later that evening at their home football game pictures of Jacob were posted at the front gates and sometime during a break in play (I think halftime) the student body officers did a "dash for cash" using what they called "Jars for Jacob," which consisted of multiple SBOs running through the stadium bleachers to see who could collect the most money in their jar, all of which will be donated to Jacob. Can you believe that?

The Hispanic club has apparently already ordered rubber wristbands of the "Livestrong" genre, only they are blue and just say "Jacob" on them. 1,000 bracelets were donated to this club and they are selling them for $1 each to the student body in hopes to raise at least $1,000.

We are absolutely stunned by and tremendously grateful for the outpouring of generosity shown by Principal McKee, the student leaders, and the student body of Spanish Fork High School. It is overwhelming, isn't it, to contemplate what is being done for one obscure little boy in one little city in Utah by a large group of teenagers who haven't even met this boy? It's just a little more overwhelming for Sara and I because that little boy happens to be our little boy.

Truly, when a group of teenagers are inspired by a common cause and unitedly set their hearts to accomplish something they will move heaven and earth to achieve it. We are grateful beyond words that Jacob has become the cause and inspiration for Spanish Fork High School!