Students of Lakota East and Lakota West High Schools have taken on the initiative to kick-off their Service Challenge by uniting the two rival schools to collect toy donations through the Toys for Tots organization. To get a better understanding of this project, we talked to student leader, Grace Silverberg.
Grace and another student of Lakota East High School, Mark Krajewski came up with the idea of collecting toy donations, along with a few students from rival, Lakota West High School at the 2018 Youth Leadership Seminar in October. This was the first year Lakota East High School students could attend.
Grace shared that her counter-part Mark, showed a strong desire to collect toy donations on behalf of the Toys for Tots campaign. Mark’s wish to collect donations grew as he knew he could use resources throughout the community to do something that would benefit children this holiday season.
Grace and Mark rallied within their school along with members of the Student Athletic Leadership Team (SALT) to take make sure this project is a success. As a part of SALT, 40 student-athletes meet every two weeks to discuss ways to become better leaders for their teams as well as outside of sports.
On December 14th, 2018, Lakota East boys’ basketball team will be playing rival, Lakota West. Grace and Mark, along with their SALT team are asking that spectators of the game to bring a toy donation of at least $10 to donate to the Toys for Tots campaign. T-shirts will also be sold during the game to donate all proceeds to the Warren County Toys for Tots organization. To connect students of all ages through the “WE are Lakota” motto, students of Lakota East and West’s elementary and junior high schools are encouraged to bring in toy donations as well during school hours.
Lakota East and Lakota West would love to be able to fill a truck with toys to donate, but have a goal of at least 100 donations total. Grace’s expectation is that “… with the spirit of giving this holiday season, our Lakota community will give back to the children.”
To stay up to date with this Service Challenge and many more great projects, follow hashtag #AMFChallenge!