From Monday, Nov. 30 to Friday, Dec. 11, the Class of 2017 held a holiday drive for the youth at Covenant House Florida, a shelter for homeless youth in Orlando.

This annual drive was first held on campus last year and was organized by junior class president Sierra Hittel. This drive stood out because it collected items such as music players, board games, clothes and beauty products instead of food.

“We were definitely interested in doing a drive around the holidays as a part of our community service because during that time everyone is in a more giving mood and are in the spirit of the season,” Hittel said.

To encourage participation, the 7th period with the most donations earned a pizza party. Boxes for the drive were distributed to teachers who had expressed interest in participating. The donated items were collected from the classrooms on Monday, Dec. 14, and chorus teacher Tori Rathbun’s 7th period class won the party.

“It’s nice to give back because, to them, having good smelling shampoo is a true rarity in their life,” sponsor Ashley Bennett said. “They don’t get those kinds of things often.”

This year, instead of basing the numbers off of the quantity of items donated per class, the value of the donations were added together to determine the winner.

“We wanted a more fair way of deciding the winners since, obviously, some items are of more value than others,” Hittel said.

The Class of 2017 plans to continue this event next year.