It’s school vs. school, friend vs. friend, class vs. class, as the schools of the Lenape High School Regional School District will battle it out and try to collect the most items for Goodwill International of Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia.
Lenape Regional High School District Foundation of Leadership students and faculty advisors from each high school organized the community service project benefitting Goodwill. Proceeds from the sale of everything collected fund Goodwill’s job training programs and career services that help local residents with disabilities and disadvantages get to work.
The competition will pit each high school against each other during the collection period from Monday, March 5 to Thursday, April 19.
“The Lenape Regional High School District is excited for the partnership with Goodwill Industries and the community service opportunity for our students,” said Superintendent of Schools Emily Capella. “Our students are committed to service learning and their contribution to the community is commendable.”
It’s going to be a pressure filled two months as students, parents and faculty at Cherokee, Lenape, Seneca and Shawnee begin cleaning out their closets, basements and garages and then to donate gently-used unwanted items to Goodwill.
Assistant Principal of Cherokee High School Scott Agnew said whenever the district has an inter-high school competition, it really gets the competitive juices flowing in the students.
“Whenever there’s competition amongst the Indian schools, everyone is out to get number one. We’re very competitive within our district,” he said. “For the most part, our kids are very fortunate in Evesham to have the opportunities that they do. This is just one of many charitable things we do in the high school. So many of our clubs and teams do things to help out the needy, we have numerous food and clothing drives throughout the year. It’s great.”
Goodwill will be bringing donation containers to each school’s parking lot during spring-cleaning season. Once full, a Goodwill truck will empty the container, count the number of bags in it, and then compute the number of pounds of donations collected.
Cherokee High School’s donation box will be right at the entrance of Cherokee North, Agnew said, to remain in the forefront of student and parents minds.
“We want our students to have the awareness that not everyone is as well off as most of us are. The ability to reach out and help the people who need help, our kids have been unbelievable in doing that,” he said. “To make it competitive, that’s a little bit more fuel for our kids. The student council is heading this, but the entire school is going to be involved.”
Donation results for each school will be periodically posted on the district’s website at www.lrhsd.edu and on Goodwill’s Facebook page www.facebook.com/GoodwillNJ.
The school that collects the most donations (based on pounds) will be crowned the 2012 Champions and receive a trophy that can proudly be displayed at their school until 2013, when the new clothing drive challenge begins.
According to Goodwill’s President and CEO Mark B. Boyd, leadership students have spent many months preparing for this competition and learning about Goodwill. In January, a group of 40 students toured Goodwill’s Retail Operations Center, where donations are sorted, recycled and prepared for sale. A visit to Goodwill’s Outsourcing and Production Fulfillment Center, which provides employment opportunities for people with disabilities, showed them Goodwill’s mission in action.
The Lenape Regional High School District serves the eight municipalities of Evesham, Medford, Mt. Laurel, Shamong, Southampton, Tabernacle and Woodland townships and Medford Lakes borough.
