The Christmas season is approaching, and it was fun to watch my grandchildren make their wish lists for us.  They were long lists, let me tell you.  I know this is a time of year when all of us think of what we are going to get and what we are going to give to those we care about, but it does my heart good to see the various ways our student body is reaching out to others, finding ways to help them, giving of their time, effort, and money to provide for those in need.  Two things happened just last week and other things have occurred recently that make me know that we have good kids here at Sunray High School.

Last Tuesday before we left for Thanksgiving, the National Honor Society and the Student Council engaged in great service activities.  Each year both of these organizations reach out to others.  The NHS has fun with their service activity.  They get the students—and staff members sometimes—to be a part of the annual NHS Talent Show—if you can call what goes on that day talent.  To get into the production, students and staff have to donate one canned item or pay a dollar.  This year the group collected 70 canned items and $106 which will be given to the Sunray Ministerial Alliance for needed families here in Sunray during the holiday season. It was a fun-filled couple of hours and all the proceeds went for a worthy cause.  Later that same morning, the SHS Student Council honored a group of people in our community who well deserve honoring.  The SHS hosted a Thanksgiving luncheon for the senior citizens of our community.  This group always comes to the middle school a little early, visits with friends, students, and administration, and then is served a Thanksgiving meal by the students on the council.  The elementary students help out by making Thanksgiving placemats for the meal.

These are not the only groups that work hard to serve others.  Our cheerleaders on a couple of occasions have “passed the bucket” for donations for students who are seriously ill and are incurring great medical expenses.  The FFA has also held cookouts for students at our campus who need help with medical expenses.  In addition, the FFA has taken up collections for hurricane victims and for families who have lost everything in a fire.  Every year the FCCLA collects items that the Ronald McDonald House needs and then spends an afternoon touring and working there.  This group also travel each fall to the Eveline Rivers Coat Project and donate an evening sorting and handing out coats to area children who need them.  I am not the only one who appreciated this service. I received this email from a volunteer who worked with these FCCLA students: "I was a volunteer at Eveline's coat project last night and wanted you to know that you have an outstanding group of kids.  They were so very polict and helpful.  It was a great honor working with them.  Eveline was short-handed, and it was a welcome relief to have such hardworking group of students.  They representended Sunray as well as anyone could!  This year our new 9^th Grade Success Class has divided into groups and each group has developed a service project and implemented that project. It has been encouraging to see these freshmen students learn to work together in serving others.  It has been good to see all our students working together to help others.

So when you hear that teens are “going to the dogs” or hear other such negative statements, know that it isn’t true of our students.  We truly have students who care about others enough to give of themselves and to give of their means.  Students at SHS are students who reach out to others.