Kids wear hats with pride

Baseball hats. A zebra fedora. A Cat in the Hat top hat. A rainbow beanie. A silver sequined Santa hat.

Whatever the chapeau being thrown in the air, the sentiment was the same: pride.

Carden Academy of Huntington Beach students raised more than $3,000 for Hats On Day to benefit children with cancer.

Founded in 1995 by a sixth-grade class in St. Louis, Hats On Day came about after their classmate Kevin Beffa was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The boy lost his hair from chemotherapy treatments and needed a bone marrow transplant, so his classmates planned to wear hats in solidarity with Kevin while raising money for his surgery, organizers said.

Although the boy died just days before the event, the kids carried through with it in his memory, and the fundraiser has grown to cover all 50 states since then.

Children still wear hats to increase awareness of those undergoing chemotherapy, and they collect donations to benefit local kids with cancer.

The Foundation for Children with Cancer has since raised more than $700,000.

Last year’s top-performing school nationwide raised $2,351.30; Carden Academy’s effort may push it to the top of the national ranks.

The school’s seventh-graders raised the most, bringing in more than $1,200; they were followed by first grade, which raised $380, and eighth grade, which raised $367. The seventh-graders also wore some of the most flamboyant hats for Hats On Day.

Each class spent the past week collecting donations; while some seventh-graders brought in $100 bills they solicited, other younger children raided their piggy banks and brought to school bags of coins comprising their life savings.

Organizers found themselves running to the credit union down the street several times during the week to have the coins counted, and some tokens from Chuck E. Cheese and other game centers also ended up in the mix.

Reporter CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (714) 966-4631 or at candice.baker@latimes.com.