Kassie cares

Kassie Frasher’s business plan for her marketing class was supposed to exist on paper as an ordinary high school assignment. Instead, it became a live country music concert to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and featured two Grammy-nominated artists.

The concert, Columbus Country Cares^®: A Night of Music to Support St. Jude, was attended by 700 people, and raised $15,000 for St. Jude. It featured performances by Brothers Osborne and Brandy Clark on January 6 in Columbus, Ohio.

“I didn’t want this to be a plan and just write it up,” Frasher, an 18-year-old senior at Gahanna Lincoln High School, said. “I wanted to have fun with this project, and actually do it.”

Frasher was supported by 92.3 WCOL, a Columbus country radio station, and Dan Zucko, the station’s program director and an on-air staff member of its morning show.

92.3 WCOL conducts radiothons to support St. Jude through Country Cares for St. Jude Kids®, one of the most successful radio fundraising events in America. Since the program began in 1989, nearly 200 country radio stations across the country have participated and raised $600 million in pledges for St. Jude.

Frasher said she was moved by the fact that St. Jude freely shares its research with the worldwide medical community.

“I thought that by giving back to St. Jude, I would be giving back to every hospital around the world,” Frasher said.

She also emceed the event, and asked local businesses for items for the event’s silent auction. And she is actively working with fellow students and her teacher, Christopher Lynch, to encourage a future student from the DECA class to continue what she started.

“It was fun,” Frasher said. “I would do this again in a heartbeat.”