Central High softball players needed to raise $15K to visit Vice President Kamala Harris. It took a day.

There was only one way to describe the Central High School community’s reaction to Vice President Kamala Harris’ surprise visit to a varsity softball practice earlier this month.

“Gobsmacked,” Parent Advisory Council co-Chair Sunny Kase said.

The team got another shock earlier this week when Harris invited the girls to a Women’s History Month reception at the vice president’s residence. There was just one snag — the team would have to pay its own way, meaning raise about $15,000. Flights alone would cost more than $1,000 and the event is less than a week away.

Not that it mattered, according to Central High Principal Cherise Ayers. The girls were going to Washington, D.C. — end of story.

“It wasn’t a question,” Ayers said. “I didn’t even consider how we would raise the money. I just knew we were going.”

So Kase and the other parents on the Advisory Council put together a crowdfunding campaign. Within 17 hours, the team reached its initial goal. That means four captains and a crew of chaperones will fly out to the nation’s capital and rub elbows with the vice president once more.

Kase and Ayers also want the girls to make the most of their time in Washington, so they’ve been brainstorming to choose historic sites to visit and elected officials to meet.

“They’re the leaders in this,” she said. “We are the followers.”

The opportunity also means that the Central High softball team captains have to decide how to pay their good fortune forward. Giving is a two-way street, Ayers said.

“The community should expect a lot from Central students and our school giving back,” Ayers said. “Giving is not a one-way conversation.”

It’s the kind of culture that already exists in the school community, Kase said. Several alumni donated to the cause, many of them generations removed from their time at the school.

“Central High School is an amazing place,” Kase said. “It’s one of those community beacons where if people have any touch point to it, they have deep roots.”