WINTER HARBOR — The $1,300 in proceeds from the annual eighth grade basketball game at the Peninsula School March 3 will be turned over to longtime bus driver George Bamford, who is ill with cancer.

The lighthearted game pitting students against their parents and members of the Winter Harbor and Gouldsboro police and fire departments has been held the last three years to raise funds for the class’s graduation trip, but the students decided this year they wanted instead to help Bamford.

Organizers included James Malloy, a full-time officer with Gouldsboro Police, Wendy Hooper and Chris Simmons.

“The kids wanted to do something special for George,” Malloy said. “I thought that was pretty big of them.”

Two of Bamford’s daughters — Elizabeth Gilman of Winter Harbor and Faith Schappert of England — attended the game to represent their family and father, who has been a school bus driver for more than 28 years and several generations of students at the Peninsula School.

“The kids he has on the bus now are children of the children,” another daughter, Lisa Abplanalp of Orrington, said Monday. “We are extremely touched and grateful for all the help and we’d like to say thank you to everybody. It’s just been unbelievable.”

Young’s Market, the Winter Harbor IGA and Mc’s Market Place donated refreshments that were sold at the game.

Principal Cathy Lewis said bus drivers are often important in children’s lives.

“They know where kids are coming from, how they start their days,” she said. “This event is just one way our learning community can say, ‘thank you’ to George for all he’s done for the children.”

Malloy, the Gouldsboro police officer, was captain of the “Black and Blue Team” and gave it his all. While catching a passing basketball he snapped and broke a bone in the baby finger of his left hand.

“It’s not my gun hand,” he laughed.