Lyon Countians wrapped up an overwhelmingly successful season of giving last week to help provide a merry Christmas for their fellow residents.
It was a win-win situation for north Lyon County communities and for Northern Heights High School students during the “Three Weeks of Giving” competition held this month at the school.
Members of all four classes brought in non-perishable foods during the first week of the contest, which pitted classes against each other to bring the greatest number of items.
The senior class won root beer floats for their winning efforts during the first week, according to Sally Anderson, school counselor.
“They (the foods) were taken to a local church, where the church adds the perishable things to it, and then distributed among the north Lyon County communities,” Anderson said. “The second week, we brought gloves and mittens and scarves.”
Those items were distributed among the three grade schools in the district.
“Then it is up to the grade schools to determine that need for the extra warmth for the winner,” she said. “And the Class of 2007 won that one, too.”
Last week’s giving was a contest to collect money. The strategies for winning changed drastically and the competition became much more intense.
“So now the blood-letting is on because this is the penny war,” Anderson said. “Even the faculty has their own penny bucket.”
Participants could bring only pennies to be counted in their favor. However, they also were welcome to put larger change and dollar bills into their competition’s buckets and that money could be counted against the bucket total. Bucket totals are counted and posted daily.
“It becomes a real game of strategy because you want to make sure that your class wins,” she said. “If the freshman have 250 (penny points) and I’m a senior, if I bring a dollar and throw it in their pot, they only have 150. ...
“It is absolutely a feeding frenzy at the end of the week. I’m sure some of the copper mines are depleted when the kids bring in all those pennies.”
The final tally for each bucket came early Thursday afternoon, when the buckets were taken to the bank for an official count. The results gave the senior class a sweep in Three Weeks of Giving. That evening, the $685 collected was used to purchase gift cards for selected community residents who needed a little help this season.
The activities were organized by the NHHS Student Council. Darwin Sweetman is president and Jed Lee is vice president. Lea Ringler is the faculty sponsor for StuCo.
In Emporia, after a few fits and starts, giving went exceptionally well, according to Major Sue Haslett of the Salvation Army.
“Toward the end, we got the toys we needed, so that was good,” Haslett said. “It was kind of scary for a while.”
Area churches, schools, the hospitals, businesses and individuals again adopted families and children, conducted toy drops, and fundraisers to help those with needs for Christmas.
The annual bucket campaign outside selected businesses exceeded its $90,000 goal on Friday, she said.
Haslett said that while talking Yvonne Johnson of ECKAN, who has helped with Christmas distributions for several years, she realized just how much the Salvation Army’s Christmas program has grown in recent years.
“It’s tripled from what it was at one time,” Haslett reiterated Johnson’s remarks. “She remembered when they put it on tables in the Annex.”
This year, those tables would not have held the gifts and food needed by families in this area. The Salvation Army served almost 400 families from its temporary storeroom in the Sunrise Plaza.
“We had 340 sign up, pre-register, for Christmas, and we ended up doing 395 families,” she said. “Everybody got toys, everybody got Christmas dinner, and now I can sit back and relax until next year.”
Some of the stories from clients affected Haslett and board member Jan Buckman as they distributed the bounty brought in by the public. One of them, a mother whose husband was unable to work, had received food and gifts for her family.
“She said, ‘If it wasn’t for you guys I wouldn’t get a Christmas. This is my kids’ Christmas.’ That was one I’ll never forget,” Haslett said. “She just stood there and was crying. And Jan and I stood there and cried together.”