Students in the AP Government class taught by Mrs. Loeschke are quickly approaching their hard-earned trip to Washington D.C. In December the group of 15 students visited the MN state capitol building to compete in the state competition for We the People. Wepo, as the students prefer to call it, is a civic organization in which students are given questions to write speeches to. They perform it for judges with a 6 minute questioning period at the end. Cannon Falls won the state competition and secured their spot at nationals, leaving on April 26th. Besides writing the speeches, the next biggest obstacle for the students is fundraising.

With the final deposit due in less than a week, Wepo only has a little more than half of the $27,000 needed to send them to D.C. They have had several different fundraising projects such as bagging groceries at Family Fare and a bake sale at Twin Rivers. Students raised over $2,000 for both weekends of groceries. The bake sale was very successful with lots of baked items and about $400 raised. Wepo has also sold malts at all school lunches which is very popular among students. At the most recent choir concert, the students put together several silent auction baskets which all sold. Another fundraising project is selling and making personalized metal signs. They are $50 each and made mostly by Graham Pearson- a Wepo member. Finally, the students rely on donations from businesses in town such as the VFW, Legion, Masonic Lodge, FIre Department, and Gemini to name a few. They are always very grateful for any donations.

We the people students are continuing to work hard and raising enough money to make the trip to Washington D.C. where they hope to represent Minnesota exceptionally.