DECATUR - Determination and fast hands won the St. Teresa High School sophomore class the walker and wheelchair races held at the school on Wednesday.

Afterward, a passing classmate said, "How do your arms feel?" and Alex Reynolds, the female half of the winning team, rolled her eyes and laughingly replied, "Sore!"

As part of Catholic Schools Week, St. Teresa students are raising money to give to the Shriner's Hospital for Children in St. Louis. The walker and wheelchair races, Alex said, were meant to give students a taste of what people with disabilities face every day, so they'd understand why it's important to help.

To start off Wednesday's assembly, 6-year-old Noelle DeJaynes told the students about her own experience at Shriner's Hospital.

"They make prosthetics for kids who have no arms or legs," Noelle said. "They had to take a model of my (right) arm."

Before getting her new prosthetic arm, said Noelle's mom, Sara, Noelle had to have a bicycle with training wheels because the lower part of her right arm ends above the hand. Now, with the grip on the prosthetic arm, she can hold onto the handlebars of a regular bike, and the training wheels are history.

On Wednesday, students paid $1 each to participate in Mismatch Day, during which they could leave their school uniforms in the closet and wear funky and funny outfits. Student council member Maggie Skeffington wore a fedora and tie, while other students wore mismatched knee socks or odd shoes, rolled up pajama pants or fright wigs.

The student council collected "winter wishes" from students, one of which was to see Sister Rosemary Skelley, the theology teacher, perform the famed "Monkey Dance." Skelley said it began when she was chaperoning a dance and imitated some of the students' dancing.

"I don't do it very often, so it was kind of a treat," Skelley said.

Students are also having a penny war, said Regina McCormack, student body president, with the classes battling each other.

"Only pennies count," she said. "You don't want any silver, unless you sneak it into another class' collection. If you have 100 pennies and a quarter, it only counts as 75 cents."

All those funds go to the Shriner's Hospital, too, she said.

Valerie Wells can be reached at vwells@herald-review.com or 421-7982.