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RAK Pack adopts family for Christmas

Inspired by creating Random Acts of Kindness, a group of students from Haig School look for opportunities to help out others in their community. Right before Christmas, the RAK Pack had a big project to complete.

Inspired by creating Random Acts of Kindness, a group of students from Haig School look for opportunities to help out others in their community.
Right before Christmas, the RAK Pack had a big project to complete. They had collected food and gift donations for an adopted family from the Salvation Army program.
“We got a family, then we donated presents and food to that family,” said Mitchell Cherpin, one of the RAK Pack students.
“It was a lot of fun. We got to go shopping and pick out items for both the mom and her son,” said Maddie Sheasby, another member of the RAK Pack.
The RAK Pack members meet weekly at Haig School during one of their lunch periods, where they discuss ideas for projects in the community.
This group is monitored by a couple of staff members from Haig School. It has been a popular extra-curricular activity at the school for a few years now.
For the Christmas season, the RAK Pack had decided to adopt one of the many families from the Salvation Army program.
To help raise funds for their project, the RAK Pack members sold heart-shaped paper to staff and students. Everyone who donated were able to put their name on one of these heart-shaped papers, which were then displayed in the Haig School hallway.
“It was important for us to help a family so they could spend time together and have a happy Christmas like everyone else would,” said Cherpin.
The RAK Pack raised roughly $500, which they used as a budget to purchase gifts and food.
“We made sure to buy meat, milk, eggs, and food items that would be good to have for breakfast, or for Christmas,” noted Cherpin.
Since the RAK Pack is quite large, students were divided into groups to go on their shopping trips. All shopping trips were supervised by teachers, who kept track of receipts and the final budget spent.
It was a great learning opportunity for the students to keep track of their shopping budgets, and to also understand the struggles that some families in the community face during the Christmas season.
The students also had a fun time having a little ‘show and tell’ with their whole group, providing information on what was purchased for their family.
“The best thing about being in the RAK Pack is getting to help other people,” said Cherpin. “We make people feel happy.”
He added that the adopting a family was also a great inspiration to other students and staff who don’t attend Haig School.
“The RAK Pack is also a great place to make new friends,” added Sheasby. “We have a lot of fun during our meetings.”
There are a number of important projects that the RAK Pack undertake throughout the year.
One of their most recent learning opportunities was a chance to learn about cyberbullying, and how to deal with this issue.
“We had a presentation, where they gave everyone T-shirts and taught us how to deal with cyberbullying, and how to handle it,” explained Sheasby.
The RAK Pack members aim to work as older mentors for younger students at the school. They make themselves available to younger students when they have a problem.
They also work hard to inspire the younger students to get involved in the community, and of course to perform Random Acts of Kindness year-round.