MANSON — The Cougars will come a-calling March 13 as seniors at Manson Northwest Webster seek pledges to go toward their college education.

The annual phone-a-thon event called Cash for Cougars will be held at the MNW Elementary School in Barnum.

A meal will be served at 5 p.m. before students start calling patrons of the school district at 5:30 p.m. The calling will be completed by 8 p.m. Follow-up mailings will be made for any persons who were missed.

The MNW Education Foundation is sponsoring the event. The MNW Foundation is a nonprofit corporation chartered by the state of Iowa.

Organizers say this event has been successful in past years at soliciting and accepting pledges and raising funds for MNW seniors to use for college expenses.

The phones the students use are provided by the Webster-Calhoun Cooperative Telephone Association based in Gowrie, according to Jan Nelson, MNW kindergarten teacher and MNW Education Foundation member.

All of the money raised through the phone-a-thon will be distributed evenly among the Senior Class of 2017.

The announcement of how much money the students were able to raise will be announced during the school’s senior award night in May, Nelson said.

“It’s always exciting on award night to see how much they raised,” Nelson said. “They get excited.”

Students will not receive the money until they complete their first semester of college, according to Nelson.

About 30 seniors usually partake in the event, said Nelson.

In 2016, students raised $8,000.

Cash for Cougars began more than a decade ago.

Nelson said it’s all about benefiting the seniors.

“The money goes all to the kids that we get in and that’s what we want to see,” Nelson said. “It’s fun for me because most of the kids I have had either in kindergarten or I have had their siblings, so it’s fun.”