Cicero Elementary raises record $24,000 for heart challenge, celebrates with sundae

A fourth-grade girl who has spent much of her life around hospital rooms helped give Cicero Elementary School’s heart fundraiser its deepest meaning. The school raised more than $24,000 in the American Heart Association’s Kids Heart Challenge, finishing No. 1 in Onondaga County and No. 8 in New York State, then celebrated by covering Principal Melissa O’Donnell and physical education teacher Stephan Bailey in ice cream sundae toppings.

The total was more than a one-day burst of generosity. Over the past six years, Cicero Elementary has brought in more than $123,000 through the program, a run that shows how strongly students, parents and staff have bought into the effort. The school’s repeated success also points to something other local schools could copy: a simple, highly visible campaign that gives children a way to support classmates with heart conditions while pulling families into the work year after year.

For Nora Tees, a Cicero Elementary fourth-grader born with a congenital heart defect, the fundraising hit close to home. Nora has undergone multiple surgeries over the last 10 years, and the school’s effort meant the money was going toward children with special heart conditions like hers. That connection gave the celebration more weight than a typical fundraiser tally. It tied the school’s energy to the lived reality of families who measure progress in surgeries, checkups and recovery.

O’Donnell said the campaign matters to her not only as principal but also as a parent, because her own child also lives with congenital heart disease. That personal link helps explain the tone at Cicero Elementary, where the Kids Heart Challenge has become a recurring part of school culture rather than a one-off event. In earlier district updates, more than 200 students and families took part in one effort that raised $18,029, and more than 300 students and families joined in another year. Those efforts helped push the school’s three-year total to $55,000.

The American Heart Association describes the Kids Heart Challenge as a school-based service-learning fundraiser that supports physical and emotional well-being while teaching volunteerism. It also says the organization has worked with educators for nearly 50 years. The broader health stakes are clear too: congenital heart defects are the nation’s No. 1 birth defect, and the association’s work with The Children’s Heart Foundation is aimed at advancing research into diagnosis, treatment and prevention. At Cicero Elementary, that national mission showed up in a very local way, in a school that turned a record total into a lesson in heart health, family commitment and community action.