It takes one good deed to make someone’s day. But for the Kenai Middle Schoolers, they have done enough good deeds to make the day better for 58 homeless individuals.
According to Kenai Middle School Nurse, Dixie St. John, she’s proud of how the students were able to work together with one another to really make a difference for those in need.
But St. John isn’t only just a school nurse, she’s also the adult supervisor for Sources of Strength for Kenai Middle School.
The program Sources for Strength is a youth suicide prevention program which teaches kids how to tap into the positive things in their lives. This can be things like mentors, friendships, spirituality, music, and more.
“And so if we do campaign, so generosity is one of them. And so when you’re struggling on the inside, focus on what you can do on the outside. And so that’s one of the tools that you can focus on. So rather than dwelling on what you don’t have, it teaches kids to focus on the things that they can do and they do have control over,” said St. John.
Within this campaign, St. John had an idea to have the students host a competition between the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders to see who could create the most amount of care bags for homeless individuals.
The victory went to the 6th graders, but the real winners is everyone who participated in the campaign.
There were two types of bags created; one for men and the other for women. The men were able to receive 34 bag, while the women received 24.
Some of the items that went into the bag included baby wipes, hygiene products, clean socks and underwear, a water bottle and more.
“And so just kind of overall a really good bag for somebody to be able to have if they have nothing,” said St. John. “Change for the Kenai gave us some journals that have like an inspirational quote on them and a pen because maybe they need to be able to write information down and they don’t have it.”
The homeless bag will be distributed to Office of Children’s Services, the Food Bank, Kenai Alternative School, Lee Shore Center, Kenai Central High School, Mt. View Elementary and Love Inc for the Homeless Connect later this month.
