Otsego math project + heart = funds for girl fighting cancer

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Courtney Reyome poses,
wearing some of the bracelets she is selling to raise money for an Otsego Elementary classmate with
cancer. (Photo: Shane Hughes/Sentinel-Tribune)

TONTOGANY – An Otsego girl is hoping a bunch of rainbow bracelets brings a little light into a
kindergartner’s life.
Courtney Reyome, who is 11, is selling Rainbow Loom bracelets and giving the profits to the family of
McKenna May, who is battling cancer. McKenna made headlines when her father refused consent in 2012 for
a Make-A-Wish trip to Disney World in Orlando, Fla. The girl ended up making the trip, thanks to
donations that poured in from around the country.
"She seems like a really enthusiastic little girl who just got stuck with cancer," Courtney
said. "I just wanted to help her."
So far, Courtney has weaved together dozens of the popular rubber-band bracelets. She sells them for
$1.50 each to family and friends – and has raised $190 so far.
"I thought that maybe it could go for gas or for a grocery bill," Courtney said. "I’m
hoping that I raise a lot of money for her."
According to a November Sentinel-Tribune story, McKenna, who has been battling leukemia for two years,
relapsed at the beginning of October.
Courtney started the bracelet project along with her fifth-grade class at Otsego Elementary. Her teacher,
Brooke Bradley, divided her class of 26 into five groups and asked them to come up with a business idea.
The children could choose the product they were going to develop and where the profits go.
"We voted and it was either duct tape or Rainbow Loom," Courtney said.
Bradley said Courtney has taken the lesson to another level.
"I never dreamed she would be going out and doing that with church and friends. It’s pretty awesome.
She’s a pretty remarkable girl," the teacher said.
The project-based learning came out of a lesson on decimals, Bradley said, and how people use them in the
"real world."
The students had to tally how much they spend on each bracelet and decide what to charge.
"I just gave the spark … and now they’re going for it all on their own," said Bradley, who
added that the students work on the project during study hall.
Some of the other groups are donating profits to Mercy Children’s Hospital in Toledo or toward buying new
playground equipment at the elementary school.
What started out as a math project has become a reading lesson, too, said Bradley, who is in her 13th
year of teaching and her first year at Otsego. The kids are also making posters to advertise the May 9
sales bazaar during lunch and are writing commercials.
"It is integrating our standards in math and literacy but it’s student driven. This project is what
it is because of the student ownership of it," she said. "Every student is working very hard
on this project, no doubt about that, but Courtney is going above and beyond."
The girl has found supporters all around the area.
She took some bracelets to her Tontogany church and explained to the Calvary United Methodist Church
parishioners what she was doing. There was one bracelet left at the end of the service.
Her mom, Cindy Reyome, got an order from her work at Al Smith Chrysler Dodge Jeep. Service manager Jon
Petersen bought 20 of them and hands them out to children when they come into the North Main Street
business.
Reyome said Courtney got a Rainbow Loom kit for her birthday in November.
"When this started up in school, she went wild," Reyome said.

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