Day of Giving a day of giving back for AGHS students

Ash Grove High School held their Day of Giving on Monday, Nov. 11. Almost all of AGHS’s 288 students took part in the event, performing acts of public service in Ash Grove and Bois D’Arc.
Jocelyn Lowry, family and consumer sciences teacher, said the point of Day of Giving was to teach students the importance of good works.
“I and the other … career and technical education teachers here at Ash Grove High School plan an annual Day of Giving,” she said, “where we send the entire high school population of students off to various organizations and businesses within the Ash Grove area to give back to the community to instill the principle of using their skills that they have to help others.”
Students perform wide variety of service tasks
The students completed a number of service projects, Lowry said.
“They were sent to the Bois D’Arc Fire Department, Ash Grove CMH Nursing Home, the Sunshine Center here in Ash Grove, the Ash Grove Fire Department, the Ash Grove Community Garden, the Kelley Cemetery and the Nathaniel Boone Homestead. We also went to local homes of our veteran members in the community, and then we also had some on campus opportunities to volunteer as well.”
The service acts performed by the students varied with the locations. Lowry said.
“At the Sunshine Center,” she said, “they were serving lunch at that time, so students were able to mingle with the veterans that were there and other community members. They helped take their trash from their lunch, refill their beverage drinks and just visit with them. We also swept and cleaned after their lunch rush and helped them get the room back together. Students at the community garden were able to help assemble a shed that needed to be put together. They pulled weeds, picked up rocks and things like that. At the cemetery … students cleaned the headstones of dirt and moss growth, and … any twigs and sticks that had fallen put those in a pile, and they helped burn those. Just cleaning up the cemetery.”
A way to honor local veterans
Day of Giving, Lowry said, was purposely held on Veterans Day.
“Last year was the first year we switched doing Day of Giving on Veterans Day,” she said. “So, the first half of the day is our breakfast and our assembly. And then for the second half (of the day) this year and last year, we kind of wanted to focus on local veterans. We sent out a Google form for family members and veterans to be able to fill out seeking projects that they needed done around their home, and so we had a handful of veterans who accepted our help this year. We are looking forward to being able to help more veterans in years to come.”
Students want to help community
Most Ash Grove students, Lowry said, are eager to volunteer for Day of Giving.
“I think most students had a positive experience giving back to the people in their community,” she said. “Although they did miss a day of class, I think … the time spent outside of class at these various organizations was meaningful. They got to show their leadership skills, teamwork, working with others in their school community, and they were hopefully able to feel the sense of pride and service within their community, which was part of the goal of the day.”
Alex Acosta, 16, was one of the students who helped out at the Sunshine Center. He said he really enjoyed the experience.
“It was awesome,” he said. “We went to the Sunshine Center, and we helped the … elderly take down their trays and just talk to them, and we helped clean up afterwards.”
Acosta said he liked volunteering because “it’s just awesome to get together and help our community any way we can.”
Mataya Wilcox, 14, a first-time volunteer, helped to clean up Kelley Cemetery. Like Alex, she said she liked helping out.
“I really enjoyed … looking at the gravestones, kind of looking at the dates, just reading the names, getting to clean them off, making them look more put together,” she said. “We helped also … pick up logs and sticks around the graveyard; just kind of put them in a fire around the corner just to clean up the grass a little bit, make it look (nicer).”
Nadaleigh Thoenen, 17, was one of the volunteers who went to the Ash Grove CMH Nursing Home. She said she and the others performed a variety of tasks while there.
“They split us up,” she said. “Some people went to decorate trees (and) clean up the nursing home. Some people went outside to work on pulling some weeds in the courtyard and clean wheelchairs, and then some other people made some Christmas ornaments to put on all those trees.”
While Nadaleigh was kept too busy to speak with the residents, she said she was glad to know she was helping to make the home a little more cheerful for them.
“I really didn’t get to interact much,” she said, “I was always moving around, but I did get to kind of feel better that they kind of got some things taken care of for them, just making the place look nicer for them, so they’re more comfortable.”