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8-20-15 — Summer Provides Many Opportunities for Student Volunteerism
Aug. 20, 2015 ~ Summer time for high school students can mean working more hours in a part-time job or it can just as easily involve volunteering their time. Dozens of Olathe high school students spent part of their summer break helping with projects in district buildings.
At Bentwood Elementary School, members of the Olathe East High School football team lent a hand moving thousands of pounds of classroom furniture, files and equipment from the gymnasium back into the correct place throughout the school. The gymnasium housed all of these items while various aging facilities construction projects took place in the building.
"I was thrilled with the receptiveness of Coach Jesse Owen (to this project) and the muscle power of the athletes to move every piece of school furniture and teacher belongings back to the classrooms, in four hours!" Principal Cathy McDonald said.
Student groups from three schools helped the Olathe Public Schools Foundation with its annual school supply drive and backpack stuffing event. The Olathe Northwest High School football players, Olathe South High School cheerleaders, and members of robotics Team 1710 at Olathe Northwest helped in many ways.
"We need all hands on deck to stuff 1,600 backpacks each summer," said Cindy VonFeldt, foundation executive director. "We absolutely could not do it without the help of these amazing high school groups. They help us load into our assembly room, open all the packaging, sort the backpacks by grade and school, and then they help us clean up the mess when we are done. Our adult volunteers from Farmers Insurance love working side-by-side with these outstanding young people."