Rene Mahnke worked for two years to save up enough money to spend a year as an exchange student in the United States.

Mahnke, 17, had first visited the states from his home town of Hamburg, Germany, in 2005. He has an uncle who lives in San Diego.

“I liked it so much, I always loved to come again,” he said. “I have a lot of friends that did exchange programs, too. I heard good stuff and bad stuff, so, I researched it a bit then I applied for the exchange program.”

He began the application process in October 2009. In February 2010 he got his host family, which was pretty fast, Mahnke said.

“Many exchange students have to wait until the last few days before they leave” to find out who their host family will be, he said.

“That’s like the really scary thing. As an exchange student you can just apply for the country. It’s a random family that picks you.”

It was Tina McDonough of Ravensdale who picked Mahnke and it couldn’t have been a better match.

Mahnke quickly became involved with McDonough’s 3 Day Walk for the Cure effort, something she is infectiously passionate about, and coincidentally enough the teen had a personal interest in, too.

“My mom had breast cancer. I was around 5 or 6,” he said. “When she had breast cancer, I didn’t see her for six months because she was in the hospital for treatment and the chemo. Then I came here and I met Tina and I met all those people on the team before the 3 Day Walk.”

He explained that he was impressed when he went with McDonough and the team to the event.

“There were so many people down there,” he said. “They were walking their feets off, they had blisters, it was just amazing.”

Though it was coincidence that Mahnke’s mom was a survivor, he was inspired to do something to help, especially since he didn’t get here in time to train for the intense fundraiser in which teams walk 60 miles over three days.

“I just thought about giving back something to my mom, to Tina, because I see Tina as my second mom,” Mahnke said. “I was just so happy with my family and I was just trying to give something back to say ‘thanks.’”

One of the things he did when he started as a junior at Tahoma High in the fall was sign up for a marketing class, something he couldn’t do at home, and early on marketing teacher Michael Jackson showed his students the T-shirt press.

Mahnke realized he could make T-shirts for McDonough’s team, Valley Girls and Guys, and he got out some graphing paper to brainstorm design ideas.

He saw McDonough’s Nikes in their shoebox and the famous company slogan “was big and fat on the front, it said, ‘Just Do It.’”

“At the same time we both said, ‘Just Cure It,’” Mahnke said. “After I did this, I designed it all on the computer. Everybody loved it. My teacher loved it. Tina loved it. So, I just wanted to start as soon as I could.”

McDonough said she started crying when Mahnke told her what he wanted to and “I just have been behind him ever since.”

He ordered 500 T-shirts and used the press at school.

“The school was encouraging him to go less on his order,” she said. “I knew we’d blow through that.”

McDonough was right.

“I printed each shirt three times, all 500 T-shirts,” Mahnke said. “It was one week every day after school until like 6 or 7 p.m., then the next week every day after school.”

On the first day he printed a half dozen or so shirts.

“The next morning I found a note from the guy who was vacuuming the room, he ordered eight shirts,” Mahnke said. “It was really touching. I met him and he told me, ‘My wife had breast cancer, my mom had breast cancer, so everyone in my family with get one.’”

In three weeks, between offering the shirts at the high school and McDonough promoting them on Facebook, they sold more than 300 shirts leading up to the walk.

“The big part is that sometimes as parents or adults we have this conception in our minds that things can’t be done, especially if it’s a 17 year old or a younger person,” McDonough said. “But, if you have faith in them and give them the tools to do, they’ll be fine.”

There was about $1,800 in costs for the shirts but in the end it netted more than $5,000 for Valley Girls and Guys.

“I think of myself, it’s not a big thing, it’s just what I did,” Mahnke said. “It just felt so awesome to give something back because what they do for me is awesome, what my mom did for me is awesome. You just have to take that step when you get the chance.”

His teacher encouraged him to join DECA at the school and now Mahnke is planning to take his T-shirt fundraiser and present it at the state DECA competition. That will require writing up a lengthy paper and putting together a presentation.

Mahnke is hoping to do well at the state competition so he can go to Orlando, Fla., for the international competition.

He has reason to be confident in his project.

“I got DECA Student of the Month for the whole state of Washington because of this,” he said. “My teacher nominated me. I didn’t know about it.”

And the inspiration continues as Mahnke plans to walk with McDonough in the Race for the Cure 5K in June.

“What’s also cool, my mom in Germany, my parents were so surprised that I was doing this, they weren’t expecting that,” he said. “The first Race for the Cure in Hamburg ever is coming up and my mom started a team. They called it ‘Just Cure It.’ I also sent T-shirts home back to Germany so they will wear those T-shirts, too.”

McDonough said she is thrilled with the experience her family has had with Mahnke since he arrived in August.

“This is the first time we’ve ever done an exchange student program,” she said. “We didn’t know his mom was a survivor so we couldn’t have gotten a better fit. His letter that he wrote to the exchange student program was very convicting to me. One of the things he said in his letter was that he was hoping his family would become a second family.”

Mahnke hopes to stay in the states long enough to be part of McDonough’s team, which recently surpassed 100 members, at the 3 Day in September.

It will take some work but Mahnke is pretty familiar with that so don’t be surprised if he is part of the team in September.

And they will definitely be wearing the ‘Just Cure It’ T-shirts.

“This is so awesome to see people wearing your shirts that you designed, that you printed,” Mahnke said.

All that hard work seems to be paying off.