WHITEHOUSE, Ohio — The season of giving is not just a season for a group of students at Anthony Wayne High School.
The students are collecting books and packing them into backpacks for children in foster care at Lucas County Children Services.
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"I feel like foster care is one that gets hidden away from everything else," Anthony Wayne senior Chloe Klopfenstein said. "They're still a part of our community, they're still in our community, they're going to school with us, they're around us all the time but they don't get as much as I feel like they normally should."
So far, the group of six got 50 brand new bags donated from a local church and said there is more on the way.
"We haven't bought all the other ones yet. We're waiting until we get all the money and then we'll buy those," Klopfenstein said. "As far as books, we have collected over a thousand."
This is done through a class that is provided to students at the high school. The class started four years ago and students must complete 60 hours of community service during the year.
"They find a need in our community," social studies teacher Justin Zemanski said. "They do research to justify the need and then they plan, execute, and fundraise for their project."
He said most of his students are seniors who don't really need the class, but they take it because they want to give back to the community.
"It's truly amazing, I mean I feel blessed. I know that I wasn't doing this type of work when I was their age," he said. "They're just incredibly mature and it's just one of those experiences that just kind of reenergizes you as an educator to see students do such good work."
If you would like to help the students raise money, they are holding bake sales and raffles at their upcoming basketball games and at the junior high musical.
The class has other charitable projects going on as well, including a clothing drive to repurpose gently used school gear and helping out local veterans with mental health issues.