Seniors struggle with many things-how far away from home, what major to pick, where to go to college, what classes to take, and so on- but, one of the first struggle of each Woodland seniors year is picking a senior project. As senior projects are a school requirement and must be approved, thought and time go into the choice, especially when you know you want to dedicate yours to a cause. For Woodland Senior Franc Kolami, that cause is sarcoma.

When you see your friend struggle with cancer, like Kolami saw his friend Jack Walsh, you want to make a difference. That difference for Walsh came through his Woodland advisory, one that Kolami is also apart of. That advisory pushed to help Walsh through fundraising, and in the end they were able to help with the many costs that the Walsh family had to face. The advisory was successful, and because of that Kolami wanted to do more to help others battling sarcoma. Sarcoma is a rare form of cancer that attacks the soft connective tissue of the body, especially in the limbs. Sarcoma is very rare in adults, but for children, it is the type of cancer that 15% of child cancer patients get.

Kolami has decided to raise money for the SFA, the Sarcoma Foundation of America. The SFA is a Maryland-based foundation that for almost sixteen years has been helping sarcoma patients pay for treatment and advocating for those patients so that legislators will put rare cancers and drug treatments as a higher priority.

Kolami has decided to fundraising in a novel way, a dodgeball tournament. Kolami sees dodgeball as a way to bring together a wide variety of people in a game everyone loves, but most students do not get to play much more than the occasional gym class.

For Kolami, the main goal is to acquire a lot of support, through teams playing, t-shirt sales, and people watching during the game, so that he can send as much as he can to the SFA.

Kolami said, “A lot of people love to play dodgeball, so it is a way to get people to come out and support, while having fun doing so.”