BERNE — The Class of 2018 at Berne-Knox-Westerlo took a serious situation and combined it with something silly — filled with heart.

The seniors at BKW, in a senior “prank,” raised nearly $2,000 for their classmate, Amy Wideman, who has cancer.

Amy’s mother, Michelle Wideman, writes in a GoFundMe page, “I’m a single mother of two. My youngest, my daughter Amy was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer. The doctors found 6 tumors in and around her thyroid and lymph nodes. Also a large mass called a goiter which is cancer as well. We will be traveling back and forth to New York City for her testing, surgery, and aftercare.  I am asking for help so I can take time off from work to be by her side through her surgery and aftercare.”

Students in the senior class had been discussing what to do for their senior prank, when they realized that their classmate was in need, and decided to combine their prank — a luau during class time — with a fundraiser, said senior Charles Boone.

“It was just an idea at lunch,” he said.

The idea came together a month prior, but most of the “solid planning,” happened a week before. Students made a sign-up sheet to bring in certain food items, and were at the school early in the morning the day of the prank, around 6:30, to set up their poster board-and-marker signs, a charcoal grill, and lawn games.

They wore Hawaiian shirts, plastic grass skirts and coconuts, and sun hats as they flagged down cars coming onto the campus for donations.

Travis Jackson said that $300 to $400 was spent out-of-pocket by the seniors on the event. Cash or checks made out to Wideman were collected.

This fundraiser differs from past pranks, said Evan Quay, recalling some that involved vandalism.

However, the Class of 2015 raised $350 in their own senior “prank” for Emma’s Incredibles, an organization that gives money for research on the disease lymphedema, with which its organizer, BKW Elementary School student Emma Detlefsen, is afflicted.

The Class of 2018 fired up a grill, and set up food for a barbecue, charging staff members who wanted a bite to eat another donation. By the end of the day, they had raised over $1,300, but donations continued to come in, totalling about $1,800, said senior class advisor Lindsay Zayachek. Donations to Wideman’s GoFundMe page have also been coming in, with nearly $4,000 of the $5,000 goal reached.

“She’s going to be so excited when she sees this,” said senior Alyssa Flagler in the midst of the luau.