The Imperial Cougars senior girls volleyball team joined the school’s inMotion committee last month to raise money for breast cancer research and the group’s determined effort can only be categorized as a hit.

Katherine Rieger, principal of Imperial School and a Cougars volleyball coach, said the sixth annual Imperial Cougars senior girls volleyball team’s five-kilometre walk Oct. 17 raised over $1,589 for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. She said this amount is incredible considering the team usually raises around $150 to $300 at the yearly walk that coincides with a Cougars home tournament.

“Our belief is parents and our community does so much for us and this is the one thing, once a year that we can give back in a really positive way and raise awareness,” said Rieger, noting the girls still baked their signature pink ribbon sugar cookies for the event. “I’m proud of the (senior) girls for doing that and I’m proud of the inMotion committee for helping us do it because, although it was the same girls for the most part, you can’t do it completely by yourself without all the other people of town joining in and helping.”

The inMotion committee is a student group that tries to keep kids at the school and members of the community healthy through an active lifestyle. The committee helped plan the walk through first mapping the route, divvying up the different jobs, putting up posters and then approaching members of the community.

“The kids themselves contacted the Town of Imperial to see if they would give us the Hall for free to have the burger (lunch) at,” she said. “The kids talked to the Service Club to see if they would cook the burgers and the (rest of the) town just fell into place and started donating things. We had a donation of hotdogs for us and a donation of condiments.”

Rieger said there was a little help from herself on the volleyball side and teacher Jade VanDamme with the inMotion committee to organize the walk, but for the most part the whole campaign was student-driven. She said the kids spearheaded the project and deserve the recognition for pulling off such a fantastic event.

“The students are the ones who took the initiative and kept working on it,” said Rieger, adding the Cougars finished second at their home tournament losing to the Loreburn Aztecs in the final game. “Its fun and it makes me feel pretty good.”