On Oct. 30, David Mburu Nganga passed away due to a sudden onset of Pancreatic cancer. His last wish was to be laid to rest in Kenya.

As soon as students heard the Nganga family needed help with money to get to Kenya, Fellowship of Christian Students [FCS], Student Council and Hype club made supporting junior Mburu Nganga, David Nganga’s son, their top priority.

“I didn’t know Mburu personally, but his story really hit home.” StuCo junior class representative Emma Perez said. “To think of someone going through that much pain…I just really wanted people to rally around Mburu.”

Announcements were made and StuCo members collected money for the cause during lunch periods.

“We raised almost $800 for him.” Perez said. “He and his family were really appreciative. It just made me really happy knowing that we could help, even if it’s in such a small way.”

After finding out about Mburu’s family FCS held a meeting and decided to host a bake sale in the commons. The texted out in their group message asking people to bring baked goods for a sale they intended to have the next morning.

“We didn’t think we would get a lot because it was such short notice,” Junior and FCS member Sydni Beeley. “We showed up in the morning to set up tables and everybody bought food. It was super exciting because everyone brought food and people were actually coming up and buying them.”

That morning FCS raised a lot of money and intended to host another one during lunch. They then found out they could not, in fact they were not suppose to do one in the morning. But FCS was not discouraged and they held another one after school. They raised $290 over all.

“I think it [the money raised] probably helped a little bit, I mean any money probably helped.” Beeley said “I think the school as a whole did a lot.”

Hype club had lots of ideas on how to raise money, but due to the urgency of the situation, they had to act fast. Hype club also asked StuCo to incorporate purple into the theme of the coming football game.

“Hype club is more of the moral support, trying to make him feel welcomed and feel loved.” junior and Hype club member Piper Rogers said. “It’s wearing the purple and it’s encouraging him and it’s trying to do anything we can to make sure he feels better.”

Hype also encouraged people to wear purple to the football game on Nov. 11 and worked on spreading around a link to the family’s GoFundME page which had collected more than $10,000 before Mburu left for Kenya.

The sense of support around the school has impacted and helped many students, but this was not always the case. Senior and Hype club member, Jasper Hawkins, feels that the family atmosphere of this year is something that is very new to the school.  

“I actually got bad messages from past Free State students,” Hawkins said. “They would DM me either my personal account or the hype account, and say ‘When I was at Free State I never got that kind of support.’ and I just had to tell them that this senior class, this senior year is changing Free State. Hype club is changing Free State.”