2003 Year in Review

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MHS Students Have Giving Tree

Danielle Milnes and Laura Prange, Student Council members, wrapping presents after school.

The pile of presents awaiting delivery.

Sarah Drey deliver gifts from the Student Council and Morrison High School students to the Helping Hands Project from their Giving Tree.

When students do something to help others we need to shout it from the rooftops. We hear so much about the bad it is great to hear of students helping others. The Morrison High School Students have a “Giving Tree” to help other families in the Morrison School District.

Each year MHS Student Council takes names from the Morrison Helping Hands Project and they put the names on a tree up in the cafeteria. Any student can take a name off the tree and bring in a new unwrapped $10 toy or game. This year there were 182 names, more that they have ever had before. Last year there were about 120 names. Key Club took 50 of the names to help out, Student Council purchased toys for 22 of the tags, and MHS students took the rest.

Along with the toys Student Council participates in another aspect of this project. This year they took 25 kids and spent $75 per child buying things like clothes, coats, socks, underwear and shoes. The students went shopping at the Sterling K-mart where they were given 20% off all merchandise.

Now comes the real work. Since all the presents come in unwrapped and they bought at least 8 gifts each for 25 kids, Student Council members have had a lot of wrapping to do. Members have been staying after school and coming in before school for the last ten days to get all of the wrapping done. In total they will be delivering almost 425 presents to the Methodist Church tomorrow morning.

The students really enjoy the Giving Tree Project. Many of them begin to understand how fortunate they are and how good it feels to help out those in need. Melissa Landes, the Student Council Advisor, explained, “I am always very proud of how well the project goes over and how hard my kids work to make it a success!!”

by Barb Benson, theCity1.com
December 16, 2003