Sebring, OH (December 21, 2023) – Students and faculty at Sebring Local Schools have joined forces with their community, collecting monetary donations, food and household items to provide more than 50 local families with holiday meals, food and supplies during the holiday season, a time when finances are tight.
B.L. Miller Elementary hosted its annual Christmas Food Basket Drive, putting together laundry baskets filled with household items and overflowing boxes of food for 53 local families.
Students, families and staff have been contributing food items daily to the drive, since the end of November.
Leann Laure, third grade teacher, initiated the effort with her parents 29 years ago, after her first year of teaching at Sebring. She recalls putting together baskets for eight families the first year, and credits the helping hands of many who have contributed to its great success.
“It truly takes a village, and Sebring sure does know how to show up for one another,” Laure says. “I truly cannot express it enough, this wouldn’t be possible without the contributions of so many.”
Many local businesses contributed to the efforts through monetary, food, household supplies and gift donations, including the Carl & Josie Scarpitti Foundation, the Sebring Villas, Trinity Lutheran Church, Sebring Presbyterian Church, TruCut Incorporated, Apex Control Systems Inc., and Industrial Wireless Solutions.
There were also several Sebring families, and members of Parents in Education (P.I.E.) who purchased gifts to accompany some of the food baskets.
Household items included shampoo, toothpaste, toilet paper, body wash, deodorant, laundry soap, dish soap, as well as food items for holiday cooking and everyday meals for families, including milk, bread, eggs, stuffing, sugar, flour, turkey pans, potatoes, turkey bags, hot dogs, spaghetti sauce, brownie mix and pancakes.
A pizza party sponsored by P.I.E. was the reward for the elementary group that contributed the most items.
In November, McKinley High School’s Ecology Club went “trick-or-treating for Turkeys,” an annual fundraising effort during which students decorate empty milk jugs as turkeys and venture out into the community, going door-to-door asking for donations that are used to purchase Thanksgiving turkeys for local families.
The Junior High Student Senate hosted their annual Thanksgiving Food Drive, and together, with the money raised from the Ecology Club, they were able to purchase turkeys and hams to put together complete Thanksgiving-meal baskets for 25 local families.
