Students at Albert Lea High School have been working together to assemble care packages to soldiers deployed overseas.
“Student Council was just thinking of a way we could give back to the community,” said Sergio Salgado, senior and treasurer of the student council. “We knew a lot of people in the high school are planning on going into the armed forces, and people from the area have been deployed before, so that helped us come up with the idea.”
During advisory, students can buy magnets for a dollar that say “support our troops”. All the proceeds go to student council, whose members then purchase items with the money for the packages before assembling them and sending them off.
To up the ante on the donations, student council also proposed a contest to all advisories. Whichever advisory raises the most will bag a donut party sponsored by Nelson’s and each member will receive a “speed pass” to get to the front of the lunch line.
Some advisories, like Diane Heaney’s, are even taking this one step further by assembling their own care packages.
“People respect soldiers a lot and want to do something to help,” said junior Sammy Kalis.
The care packages they are crafting will go to Kalis’s brother and another student’s family friend. Kalis’s brother, TJ, who graduated in 2009 from Albert Lea High School, was deployed on June 1 to Kuwait. Students have been bringing in letters and candy to add to the care packages.
“I think it’s really special,” Kalis admitted. “They’re going to love it and think it’s the greatest thing.”
However, care packages aren’t the only thing the school has been doing to give back. Recently the school held hat drives, where students could wear a hat for the day if they donated two dollars to the United way. This and the teachers’ silent auction alone raised more than $2,000 for the United Way. Advisories have also been pitching in by making holiday cards to send to soldiers.
“It’s a great way for a small community like ours to be supporting such a large cause,” Salgado said. “It brings patriotism to Albert Lea – and we need that.”