Crowdfund Goes Wild

In March, Raven Saunders (Faces in the Crowd, Jan. 13) set the national high school indoor shot put record, at 56' 7½". In April she broke the outdoor mark, with a 56' 8¼" heave. The only distance it seemed the senior at South Carolina's Burke High couldn't cover was the 2,434 miles between her hometown, Charleston, and Eugene, Ore., where junior nationals will be held in July. Her mom, a single parent, was unable to fund the trip, so Raven sought donations on GoFundMe.com. Her fund-raising languished at $255 until rival schools heard about her predicament, and with a $1,000 boost from the Bishop England High track team, she soon topped her $5,000 goal. The support means a lot. "I'm representing something bigger than my school—it's my county, my region, my state," she says. "It's a whole lot bigger than me."

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