By Talia Foley
The Clinton Middle School's Family and Consumer Science classes and student council have collected school supplies to send to victims of Hurricane Harvey. Mrs. Grimm, who teaches Family and Consumer Science, said that she got Clinton Middle School involved in collecting supplies when she saw that Facebook was matching classrooms in hurricane affected areas with classrooms in other areas. Classrooms collect supplies for the hurricane victims. Her classroom was matched with a sixth grade class, while the student council was matched with a seventh grade class in a different school. The sixth grade class that Mrs. Grimm's classroom was matched with was fortunate enough to attend a school that sustained only minor damage during the hurricane. Despite their good luck, many of the students have no home to return to and are living in shelters. The situation is made worse by the fact that the area was already financially challenged.
Clinton Middle School received a list of the supplies that the schools needed. The idea was to put together sets of supplies for the students in each classroom. The Family and Consumer Science class was hoping to collect enough supplies for one classroom, which would be about 30 complete sets of everything on the supply list. Mrs. Grimm stated that they had collected "overwhelmingly more" than she had expected. They ended up with enough supplies for 50 sets. A supply list consisted of 1 composition book, 1 pack of yellow highlighters, 6 Elmer's glue sticks, and 4 pocket folders with prongs.
The Family and Consumer Science classes were promised that that the class that collected the most items would receive an ice cream party, but students' desire to donate supplies seemed to go far beyond the promise of a reward. Mrs. Grimm stated that while many of them cannot truly imagine what it would be like to go through what the other students are going through, Clinton students seemed like they personally cared about helping hurricane victims. They feel a strong sense of empathy. A student said both she and her friend were very excited about the opportunity to help others in such desperate need.
This enthusiasm was reflected in the amount of supplies the students collected. Between the Family and Consumer Science classes and student council, the Middle School collected 47 composition notebooks, 221 folders, 41 sets of colored pencils, 12 boxes of crayons, 15 packs of notecards, 116 highlighters, 122 dry erase markers, 3 rulers, 4 pencil cases, 1 calculator, 1 pencil sharpener, 50 pencil toppers, 7 sets of markers, 115 glue stickes, 20 packs of number two pencils, and 18 binders. All of these supplies made a total of almost 800 items! Clinton School is shipping the supplies to the classrooms using the United States Postal Service.
This was a project that was good for everyone involved. Victims of Hurricane Harvey, who would have had a difficult time obtaining the supplies they need for the school year, will now have access to them. The students at Clinton Middle School had the opportunity to practice good citizenship by being a helpful and active part of their nationwide community.
