The football team helps to prevent childhood cancer from Thursday, Sept. 15 to Saturday, Oct. 1 through the Touchdowns Against Cancer fundraiser. All money raised during the fundraiser will benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Jaguar fans can pledge to donate for every touchdown that is scored.

“[It would] be awesome if we [can] get as many students as possible to pledge. It can be any amount, and it’s based off the number of touchdowns we’ve scored the last week and the next two weeks,” head coach Joel Applebee said.

Applebee believes that the fundraiser is the team’s way of helping those diagnosed with cancer.

“It’s for a good cause and for a good reason, and we have one of our own that is a cancer survivor,” Applebee said. “I’ve been affected very close to my family as far as cancer goes, so it’s something that I thought was an opportunity to raise some funds for a good cause.”

According to junior Clark Harris, the team is participating in this fundraiser because they “want to help the people that support [them] at [their] football games.”

The fundraiser has also made Harris want to help people who have cancer.

“I believe it’s important [to help] because if you have cancer it’s a pretty big deal, and it teaches others to be thankful [and] to help other people,” Harris said.

When Applebee was given the opportunity to support this fundraiser, he believed that it was the right thing to do.

“[MaxPreps] sent an email out about mid-summer and said they were going to do this fundraiser. You just had to go in and personalize [the website] for your own team,” Applebee said. “It seemed like it was something that we should do as a program.”

This fundraiser has not been the team’s first attempt to reach out to the community.  

“We’ve been to Harvesters [and] we’ve helped out the Sunflower House near town,” Applebee said. “I just feel like it’s something that our kids need to understand; [football is] more than just a game. You can always give back to your community.”