ONEKAMA — The fight against breast cancer could easily be characterized as a battle that moves forward one step at a time.

Students at the Onekama Consolidated Schools took 2,200 steps forward in that fight on Friday morning with the hosting of their “Portagers Go Pink” fundraiser. The high school student council members at Onekama led an effort that was supported by the entire student body to raise $2,200 that will go toward the fight against breast cancer.

Student council advisor Nikki Torrey said they were overwhelmed with the support the community extended to this project. Last year was the first time they tried the “Portagers Go Pink” campaign and they raised $260 on very short notice. However, this year they had more time to organize, and the student council did an amazing job of raising nine times more than that initial amount.

“What we did was to ask the student council members to go out and collect donations from the community. We were pretty much asking for anything they could donate and were thinking about $50 per person,’ said Torrey. “We had some very large donations come in and our hopes were to raise $1,700, but obviously we did much better and donated $2,200 today.”

Torrey said the idea just took off both in the school and the community. Last year they sold “Portagers Go Pink” T-shirts that became a very hot commodity around the school, and this year everyone wanted to get in on it.

“Last year we decided to sell them one day and we sold 175 shirts, and we could have sold many more,” said Torrey. “So this year we decided lets do it bigger. It ended up being huge as we sold 350 shirts, and we were able to raise a ton more money.”

Torrey said they planned it out so the entire student body would have the opportunity to be decked out in pink T-Shirts for the big day and they made sure they didn’t leave anyone out of the process.

“We have an ISD (Intermediate School District) room and a pre-school room, so we made sure to order little shirts as Missy Miller works with us on that and does a great job,” said Torrey.

Student council member Lindsey Nesburg said the students working on raising the funds couldn’t believe the way everyone came together in the school. She said once they put the idea out to the entire student population everyone came on board.

“It turned out just as we wanted, and it was very good,” said Nesburg. “Everyone decided to wear pink an work together on it. I was impressed with the donors and how much everyone gave. Even it was a small amount it still helps.”