Many women and their newborn babies will avoid disease this year due to the efforts of Key Club in their annual Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF fundraiser.

The club raised more than $600 through community donations which will provide 1,177 vaccines and protect roughly 272 mothers and children from maternal and neonatal tetanus.

“Here in the US, tetanus isn’t really a big deal because we have the vaccination for it,” Key Club advisor Lance Culbert said. “But in the developing world, if a mother gives birth in unsanitary conditions and contracts tetanus, the child will die within seven days of being born.”

Senior and club president Kassi Price said she enjoyed raising money for the organization.

“It felt good because we know we are helping cure neonatal tetanus in third world countries,” Price said. “We try to raise as much as we can for the cause.”

As well as fundraising through Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, the club also found other means by which to help the cause.

“Another way we raised money was a group of our kids going and working at the Amazingly Fun Farm,” Culbert said. “They donated all of their proceeds to the cause and made up about $300 of our total.”

The club raised more than $7.20 per member, recognizing them as a Diamond Level Club by Key Club International.

“We got the Diamond Level patch,” Culbert said. “But it’s about more than the patch. It’s about helping people who don’t have the means to help themselves.”