Forest Park third graders raise money for hospitalized classmate

Forest Park third graders turned a classmate’s medical crisis into action Monday, opening a school store at 8 a.m. and quickly drawing a line down the hall to raise money for Cale Campbell, the Forest Park kindergartner now spending months in hospitals for treatment.

Cale is the son of Ashley and Cody Campbell. His health fight began Dec. 9, when his parents noticed unusual bruising and took him to a doctor. Tests led to a pancytopenia diagnosis, and he was admitted to St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay on Dec. 14. Because his care required extra protection from infection, he later moved to Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee, where he has continued treatment.

The fundraiser was built almost entirely by students. A team of six girls, including Laine Peterson, Anna Robles, Rebecca, Vera Anderson and Reagan Rivard, made bookmarks, homemade stickers, key chains, bracelets, squishes and slime. They also made signs, set prices and staffed the sale themselves. What started as a small classroom project became a busy school event as students and staff came out to buy items and add to the effort.

The setting mattered. Forest Park School in Crystal Falls is a small school, and the response showed how quickly a local community can organize when one child is facing a long medical stay far from home. The effort also fit within the Iron County School District’s fundraising rules, which require pre-approval and a request at least 20 calendar days before a planned fundraising activity. In this case, that structure helped turn student initiative into a coordinated schoolwide response.

Cale’s treatment also explains why the family was sent first to Green Bay. HSHS St. Vincent Children’s Hospital says it is Green Bay’s only children’s hospital and that its pediatric hematology-oncology team is the only full-time medical team in Northeast Wisconsin caring for children with cancer and blood disorders. For a child with a serious blood disorder, that level of specialty care made the transfer necessary before his later move to Milwaukee.

The sale at Forest Park did more than collect money. It showed how a small rural school in Iron County can mobilize around one child, with third graders taking on the practical work of helping a classmate and sending support directly to Children’s Hospital in Milwaukee.