Students transform classroom into escape room to raise money for school

LORETTO, Pa. (WJAC) — One private school in Cambria County is holding a unique fundraiser next month.

Students are putting the skills they've learned in the classroom to the test, while also testing the problem-solving skills of their community.

Eighth-grader Haley Gray picked up test tubes Wednesday night, not for a science experiment, but a fundraiser for St. Michael School in Loretto.

Nine students are going through the process of creating, designing and implementing an escape room in their school.

"Help us find the evidence. We would like to graduate on time, please!" the opening video says.

"Some of the most (simple) are just a lock and a box,” said Nick Weakland. “And you find something inside and that gives you information onto your next clue."

Weakland is helping the students plan the activities. He's the owner of the nearby Loretto Escape House.

"The Loretto Escape House decided, hey, if we can build an escape room right at the school, let them keep any ticket sales or profits that they can make from that, I thought that would be a great idea," Weakland said.

"I was very interested from the start and I knew I'd never be able to do this again I think," Gray said.

"It's all about learning and having fun while you do it, so if you can find an engaging way to have students really look forward to doing something, they're really going to put all their effort into it and they're really going to learn a lot from it," Weakland said.

The students have been working on this project for about a month.

"Part of the managing of the game, the students are going to be able to see through these cameras that we have up here in the corners,” Weakland said. “They're going to be able to see what the participants are doing."

And, they'll get to see their hours of hard work paying off, watching people solve the puzzles they've spent hours putting together.

"I think we're going to make a good amount and I think it's going to go towards helping buy books for our school and supplies for the children," Gray said.

The escape room will be operating Nov. 2 to 4 and 9 to 11. You can book your tickets online for $15 on the Loretto Escape House website.

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