As part of their involvement with the EHOVE chapter of SkillsUSA, a career tech student organization for students, high school seniors Lydia Rospert, Kadin Shepherd and Stacia Petry from the EHOVE Criminal Justice program organized three community services activities that involved the 900+ student body which made a positive impact in the community.
Red Ribbon Week: This nationwide effort was created to help reduce drug use in youth while also raising awareness. The red ribbons are to honor Kiki Camarena, a DEA Special Agent who lost his life while investigating drug traffickers. EHOVE students organized a week of activities to repeatedly create opportunities for conversation including wearing red for the ribbons, wearing mismatched shoes to "walk in someone else's shoes", western day to give drugs the "boot", wearing a favorite team sweatshirt because being drug-free is "no sweat", and wearing peace signs to say "Peace Out to Drugs."
Canned Food Drive: Each of EHOVE's high school programs collected non-perishable food items to donate to Victory Kitchen in Sandusky. The top three programs were: Firefighter/EMT Juniors - 414 items, Criminal Justice Juniors - 234 items, and Collision & Refinishing Juniors - 195 items. In total, all of the high school programs collected 1730 items.
Valentines for Veterans: EHOVE high school students handmade 907 Valentine's Day cards for our community's veterans earlier this month. Criminal Justice Seniors Lydia Rospert, Kadin Shepherd and Stacia Petry led the initiative to get students involved, reviewed and organized all of the cards, and delivered them to Ohio Veterans Home, Concord Care and Twilight Gardens. In some instances, they were able to go room-to-room to deliver the cards to residents. The students said it was nice to help put a smile on the residents' faces, and they really enjoyed interacting with them and hearing their stories.
Rospert, Shepherd and Petry will present a summary of these efforts at the SkillsUSA State competition in Columbus this March in the SkillsUSA American Spirit category which documents a school's SkillsUSA chapter's community service, patriotism and citizenship. SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce. The Ohio chapter provides its 31,500+ career-technical education members, which includes many EHOVE students, the opportunity to participate in local, regional, state and national competitive events, and encourages students to give back to the community through various community service activities. For more information, go to www.skillsusa.org.
Photos:
Criminal Justice students with their instructor Stacy Robinson (far left) wearing red for the first Red Ribbon Week activity
(L-R): Criminal Justice Seniors Lydia Rospert, Kadin Shepherd and Stacia Petry with the items that will be donated to Victory Kitchen
(L-R) - Back row: Criminal Justice Seniors Stacia Petry and Lydia Rospert with Concord Care resident Bob