Urbana students tip their hats to "Angels with Heart"

Most students and staff will agree that one of the most popular spirit days during spirit week is Hat Day. This highly anticipated day allows people to break the no-hats-in-school rule for a day while showing off creativity and school spirit. Hat Day is also the spirit day that usually has the most school participation, as most students and staff jump at the idea of showing off a cool hat in school. Traditionally, Linganore’s Hat Day has always been a part of spirit week, as opposed to a stand-alone event.

However, Urbana High School traditionally holds their Hat Day separate from their spirit week, and the event is designed to raise money for a charity. This year’s charity, a family service and education organization called Angels with Heart, is dedicated to increasing the survival rate for a rare congenital heart defect called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. The event was held on Friday, April 11. Students paid a small participation fee of $2.00 to be able to wear their hats in school all day, and were given a sticker to be placed on their hats to show they had paid. As an added incentive, the person who wore the most creative hat would win a free gift card to Chipotle. Urbana student Karl Glang organized the “Hat Day” as his senior project.

“Hat Days have been done in the past at Urbana, and I thought it would be easy to get students to participate,” says Glang. “The events [in the past] were pretty successful, with at least a third of the school population participating.”

Angels with Heart was started by Karl’s aunt and uncle after their baby died of Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, also known as HLHS. The syndrome occurs when the left side of a baby’s heart is not fully developed and thus cannot properly pump blood. Though HLHS is a rare syndrome, it is almost always fatal if not detected and treated immediately. The two methods of treatment are a full heart transplant with a donated heart, and a 3-part operation called “staged palliation.”

With all of the popularity Hat Day has received in the past at Linganore, there’s a good chance that students would take the idea of a Hat Day-for-charity in good light. Students would still get to wear their favorite hat all day, but they would just have to pay a couple dollars to wear it. For one day of the year, students could wear a hat in school for less than the price of a school lunch! If that still sounds too much money to be worth it, it definitely will be worth it when all of the money raised goes to charity.

Even though arch-rivals Linganore and Urbana usually try to be completely separate from each other, the idea of a Hat Day-for-charity might not be such a bad idea for Linganore to adopt in the future.

-CMitch