JACKSON TWP — Nearly 1,000 students in the Seneca Valley Intermediate High School raised more than $5,000 Thursday for a student battling leukemia.

Those students participated in a walk-a-thon at NexTier Stadium throughout the day, an event meant to honor and help pay the bills of Brandon Welsh-King, a student diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in January.

Jodie Perry, principal at the intermediate high school, said Friday morning that the student council-run event “really shows the character of our kids” by the fact that more than 75 percent of the intermediate high school’s population took time out of their day to participate.

Each student made a donation before being allowed to walk the track at the football field. Perry said Welsh-King and his mother even came out to see the students, who made t-shirts for the walk-a-thon too.

“Everyone here is really proud of what the students here did for Brandon and his family,” Perry said.

Welsh-King’s expensive treatment includes chemotherapy, steroids, pain medications and blood transfusions. Doctors have estimated he will undergo two to three years of treatment.

All of the donations will go to First National Bank under the Brandon Welsh-King Donation Fund.