Island Cheerleaders To Host 2nd Annual Bike Wash Monday
By Leslie Rott

Mackinac Island Lakers 2004-2005 Cheerleading Team (back row, from left) Maggie Chambers, Team Captain Arial Leeper, and Jane Finkel; (middle row) Shelbie Mosley, Morgan Brodeur-Bunker, and Zhane Nash; (front row) Hailey Bean. (Photograph by Sara Chambers)

The Mackinac Island Lakers cheerleading team will hold two bike washes this summer to raise funds for its activities in support of athletic teams at the school. The first wash will be held downtown at the Fire Hall Monday, July 18, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. The second wash will be in the Village, at Harrisonville General Store, Monday, July 25, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The cost per bike is $5, which includes a wash, dry, and greasing of the chain.

All proceeds from the bike wash will go to support a growing cheerleading team and help to buy new uniforms and other cheerleading necessities.

Last year, the team made more than $600 between the two bike washes and cheerleaders hope to do even better this year.

The team does all of its own fundraising, which includes selling buttons, placing donation buckets around town, hosting an ice cream social, and its most successful fundraiser, the bike wash.

Cheerleading at the school “sort of fizzled out” in the early 1980s, said school secretary Barb Fisher. The current cheerleading team has been around for four years, organized by coach Donna Killips at the urging of an eager group of girls, and it has been improving each year since.

“They’ve really surprised me,” said Coach Killips. “I really have to hand it to them.”

For the most part, she said, the girls devise their own cheers, moves, and routines, and she just supervises them and is a sounding board for their ideas.

The team cheers at the volleyball, basketball, and soccer games, when the games are held on the Island. Cheerleaders will practice twice a week as soon as school starts in September.