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MAHOMET — Families in need going without food and gifts for the holidays?
Not in these fifth-graders’ home town. Not if they can help it.
Thanks to the Youth Leadership Club at Mahomet’s Lincoln Trail Elementary School and its biggest annual project, YLC Packs Joy, 30 local families — with a total of 68 kids — are in line to receive holiday boxes next month.
Pending a successful fundraising campaign that’s already underway, the club hopes to be able to give each family a box of food, personal-care items, wrapped gifts for each child including a shirt, pair of shoes and toy, and one paid family wish to cover rent or a utility bill, according to Dana Martin, an interventionist at Lincoln Trail.
“The students are driven and passionate about this project, and have taken such ownership of their job to reach out to community members and businesses for support,” Martin said. “It is incredible to watch them connect with people, reach out of their comfort zones and celebrate helping others.”
The Youth Leadership Club was created by Martin and fifth-grade teacher James Heinold to help foster leadership skills in fifth-graders. The YLC Packs Joy annual project was launched in 2018 by classmates of Joel Roberts, who died that year, in his memory.
Martin said the club has such goals for its members as communicating effectively, awareness of self and others, managing conflict, setting goals and making decisions, citizenship, and recognizing their roles in the community.
“Throughout the year, students grow as role models for other students and participate in service opportunities,” she said.
Principal Megan Hunter said the students have set a goal of collecting $9,000. In addition, they have a drive underway to collect 5,000 food and toiletry items.
Recipients for the boxes were identified by working with family community engagement specialist Suzann Dill, who works with students who don’t have a permanent address, Hunter said.
“Truly, you never know when someone is hungry. You never know when someone is homeless. You never really know what someone is going through,” she said.
Club members will be taking on the gift boxes from start to finish, collecting, organizing and packing the food and toiletry items, wrapping the clothes, shoes and toys for each child, and getting the boxes ready to distribute on Dec. 21, Martin said.
About 80 of the school’s 275 fifth-graders are in the Youth Leadership Club, which meets in two groups, each once a week, before the school day begins, Hunter said.
Among their other service projects are maintaining two food pantries in the Mahomet community.
To add some incentive for this year’s project, five school faculty/staff members — Heinold, Phil Weber, Mike Keller, Andrew Novak and Kody Thomas — have volunteered to shave their heads if the students meet their fundraising goal by Dec. 1.
If you’d like to donate, head online to 99pledges.com/fund/ylcpacksjo.
Hunter asks anyone who wants to make an in-kind donation of items for the YLC Packs Joy project to contact the school.
