EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. — In El Dorado County, over in the small town of Rescue, there's a 4th-grade class that has a very simple message to share: “You have the power to do good and change the world. You just have to put your mind to it."
That’s the message that McKenzie Sutherd, a teacher at Rescue Elementary School, wants to share with every student in the country because she has the story to prove that it's true.
Her story shows how a popular TikTok video, a few challenges, and a wave of unfathomable support from across the globe helped her and her class reach an ambitious $50,000 donation to Shriners Hospital for Children.
“I cry every day because they’re just amazing kids,” Sutherd said. “The $50,000 I thought was out of this world. I wasn’t going to tell them I wasn’t sure, but it made me nervous. We hit it so fast.”
The millions of views, thousands of shares and comments, and countless donations had humble beginnings. It all started, like many things during 2020, in quarantine. Sutherd downloaded the app during the pandemic as something to do and promptly forgot about it, uploading a couple of videos over the course of a few months.
When students returned to the Rescue Elementary classroom with hybrid learning, it unknowingly set the stage for the future TikTok surge. She had started uploading videos more often with her “Oh, Crap” moments in teaching and gained an audience. Eventually, one of her videos got so popular that her students were able to find her TikTok account.
“That is when they came to me and they were like, ‘we have a challenge for you…,’” Sutherd recalled.
The challenge was to get a comment from an NFL team, to get Jack Black to say “Hi, Ms. Sutherd’s class” and to get 12,000 shares.
She posted the now-viral video at 1 p.m. and in the course of a couple of hours, it was nearing 1 million views.
“I kept checking it and I could see like this team commented, ESPN commented, the US Olympic Team commented, all these people commenting… and then at recess time, I checked it the next day and sure enough Jack Black, said ‘Hi, Ms. Sutherd’s class!’” she said.
The viral post currently has 54.1 million views. The news about the post excited her class, and in that, Sutherd saw a teaching moment.
“All these people are giving to us and it’s really important to give back. That’s a lesson I wanted them to learn,” Sutherd said.
The class started researching charities and fundraising, and ultimately, connected with Shriners Hospital for Children. With a goal in mind, the second challenge video dropped on TikTok and, if the challenge was met, the class would donate $1,000 to the charity.
The pieces came together along with support from the Pittsburgh Steelers, Buffalo Wild Wings, Detroit Lions, Denver Broncos, Arby’s and many more. Among the wave of support, there was a matching donation of $1,000 from Tony Hawk.
Sutherd said that, in the course of three days, they raised $15,000 toward what would become a new goal of $50,000. More challenge videos followed, which included a challenge to "Slime Miss Sutherd” if the $50,000 goal was met.
By January 29, Sutherd and her class hit the number she previously thought was "out of this world." Even though it meant that she got a very public “sliming” courtesy of her students and some class-made vanilla pudding, the memory of the day was a special one.
“That day of sliming Ms. Sutherd was the first day that they all got to see each other and spend time together. It still gives me goosebumps,” she said.
Sutherd’s class now has a new goal of raising $1 million for Shriners and is thinking of new ways to fundraise money.
On May 19, Sutherd had the shock of a lifetime after getting called out of the virtual audience on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. For all her work and dedication to her students, the show not only featured her story but surprised her with a vacation in the Dominican Republic.
“I’m in shock that this is my life right now. I’m just a small-town teacher trying to make a difference in the world, and so to be on Ellen is absolutely incredible,” Sutherd said.
If you're interested in helping the class' donation to Shriners or learning more about the challenge, you can visit the challenge page HERE.
