1,200 at Super Smith Saturday to Aid Cancer-Stricken Grossmont Teacher

Mike Smith, a Grossmont High School social studies teacher battling skin cancer, said he could see the school’s football field from his back yard on Mount Helix. So students gathered on the letter G Saturday afternoon to wave and yell toward him.

That was among many highlights of Super Smith Saturday, a fundraiser for the teacher, himself a 1983 Grossmont High grad, that school officials expect to raise $10,000 toward expenses such as travel to Maryland for treatment of melanoma.

“I really appreciate all of your hard work,” Smith said as his wife, Andrea, at the event, held up her cell phone to a microphone. “I am very blessed to have a wonderful family, friends and school community. I’m feeling stronger every day, but now I need to rest, so I can be back.”

An “enormous thank you to everyone,” Smith said from home.

According to Associated Student Body adviser Jeremy Hersch, 20 booths were set up on the football field, along with about 20 donated items for a silent auction, including a five-day stay at a vacation home in Costa Rica.

Andrea Smith, who was there with her children, said: “This is an amazing show of support, friendship and love. I am so overwhelmed.”

More than 1,200 students, staff and family members attended Super Smith Saturday, said principal Theresa Kemper.

“I am so proud of this school pulling together to help one of our own,” she told the crowd, many of whom wore T-shirts emblazoned with a Smith-style necktie. Kemper wore that shirt as she got sopping wet in a dunk booth.

The event was the brainchild of student Jamie Marcus, 17.

“Mr. Smith is my government teacher,” said Jamie, a senior. “And when I heard that he was diagnosed, I immediately knew that I wanted to help him and his family.”

She got help from the GHS Education Foundation, and staff members offered their own unique talents, including girls lacrosse and soccer coach John Neill, who raffled off a Foothiller statue that he sculpted.