Sharing the love this holiday season

Throughout the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, students and staff are spreading the gift of giving in their local communities. Kindergarten through twelfth grade students are bringing canned goods and non-perishable food items to school which will be donated to charities across the Kenai Peninsula.

Homer High School creates a class competition to get the cans coming in. Most of the Homer area schools donate their collected food to the Share the Spirit Foundation, a non-profit organization benefitting families in the southern peninsula. The schools collect everything from canned goods and non-perishables, shoes, and coats. McNeil Canyon Elementary also assembles soup mixes for the Homer food pantry to disperse to families in need.

At Nikolaevsk School the student council packed and delivered food boxes to eight families in December. The students donated all of the non-perishables, and the staff donated the turkeys, hams, and so forth.

Kenai Middle School and Mountain View Elementary join forces to create care packages for families within the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District. Students and staff at Mountain View collect all the clothing items and gifts, and KMS brings the canned food.

Many local families were devastated by the recent typhoon in the Philippines. Kenai Central High School put their food drive on hold until February, and will hold a fundraiser to benefit local families affected by the disaster.

Soldotna Middle School also wanted to support the people of the Philippines as they start to rebuild their lives after the typhoon. SMS held its first ever “Penny Wars” competition between the seventh and eighth grade students. Penny Wars was an idea created by Mrs. Pothast and the SMS Student council—each grade brought pennies for their class jar, and either silver coins or bills for the opposing class jar. Pennies were added up and whatever silver and bills were in the jug were subtracted from the total. SMS raised a total of $992.85 to donate to the Red Cross for typhoon victims!

Kaleidoscope School of Arts and Science holds a canned food drive which benefits families within their building as well as the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank.
Redoubt Elementary turned their canned food drive into a “Can-Struction” competition. Each classroom came up with a creative can-struction design. Fourth graders in Mrs. Walter won overall with their can-struction of a castle with a drawbridge and mote, then delivered the 1,500 pounds of food to the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank, took a learning tour and ate lunch.

This year the student government from Skyview and Soldotna High School united their efforts to bless the Soldotna Community by creating thirty-five Thanksgiving boxes. The boxes were full of all the goodies to create the perfect Thanksgiving dinner, including the turkey. Any items that didn’t make it into a box were donated to the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank.

If you would like to learn more or add to the outreach at your neighborhood school, please call or visit the school office.