This year’s sixth grade Holiday Hope Chest. We all worked very hard to reach our goal of 200 boxes. We got many donations that we are so grateful for and used $2,000 from our profits at our school snack store, MA Cafe. We spent all our community periods wrapping boxes, organizing stuff, and filling up all of the boxes. We partnered with The Caring Place in Allentown. The Caring Place’s mission is to “to reach out to young people who may be exposed to drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, unemployment, and homelessness every day.’’ We worked together using an assembly line from the street to the drop-off point inside The Caring Place.
We got a tour of The Caring Place and met a volunteer there who is a Moravian Academy alum. He told us stories about his experience at Moravian. They showed us all of the building, including the new exhibit about the civil rights movement. We also got to see the classrooms that they had and that they are building more classrooms. There’s a board room with a big desk and chairs which showed the kids what formal meetings look like.
Since we went later in the day, we got to see the food drive they held for the community. They also held a clothing drive. They had many jackets and winter clothing. Then we got to see the kitchen that they have because they have a catering service. After the tour, we went to eat in the hall they had. They gave a heartwarming speech that was amazing. We got to eat our bagged lunches but also got to try some of their food which was delicious. After that, they talked about when they will give the boxes, which is when they have Santa come.
We got to have an amazing experience with The Caring Place. We are all so thankful for everything. It has been such an amazing experience giving back to the community and we actually made 253 boxes! Any extra boxes were shared with a local elementary school.