Horace Mann High students are turning a school project into what they hope will be a life-changing experience for people in need across the state.
WeAreGreenBay.com reports students in North Fond du Lac are now raising money to purchase items to donate to the Salvation Army to help those with housing insecurity. The local Salvation Army branch typically has 40 beds set up in its gymnasium to provide a warm, safe place for people to stay during the winter months. This year the need has been even greater with so many more people struggling.
“This is a record-breaking year in terms of the amount of need we’re seeing and now we’re looking at inflation,” Fond du Lac Salvation Army Community and Resource Development Director Connie Millard told WeAreGreenBay.com
The Horace Mann students decided to get more involved after a few of them took a tour of the Salvation Army facility as part of a marketing and business class they’re enrolled in that challenges them to come up with their own business idea for something they are passionate about.
At the end of the year, the students have a chance to pitch their business idea to a group of community leaders and can win money for their business.
“It was really heartbreaking the way you would see the bed and they have kids, they have like a kids’ room,” Laura Ayala, one of the students doing the project, told the website.
Ultimately, Ayala joined forces with sophomore classmates Lily Heidl and Chloe Burgert to launch the non-profit ‘Hope on the Block,’ which sells t-shirts and then uses the revenue to purchase such items as mittens, toothpaste, and shampoo that they then donate to the Salvation Army.
WeAreGreenBay adds that the girl’s project comes at a critical time for the Salvation Army as a whole, given their winter warming shelter closes on April 1 and the items now being donated will go a long way in helping their clients to prepare for the upcoming summer months.
“It makes me feel good like I’m helping out others,” said Heidl.
