While teenagers often get a bad reputation for being only concerned about themselves, Adopt-A-Family, a donation collection operated by the class councils at CHS, gave students an opportunity to serve the Carlisle community.

The school board, with assistance from the area elementary schools, gave the class councils a list of low-income families that would benefit from Adopt-a-Family. The councils then collected money that they would then use to buy gifts for the families.

Dave Bigelow, the senior class advisor, said that each member of class council had a different job to do for the program.

“Each council member has a different family that they are assigned to, and they wrap according to each designated child and age group, as well as their gender,” said Bigelow.  

During the money collection phase of Adopt-a-Family, which lasted for a week this year, students gave money to their English teachers and to the designated collectors that walked around during every lunch period.

“The donation of money has been available to be collected in every English class at CHS, and the students, as well as the staff members, are the collectors of the money during each lunch period,” said Bigelow.

This year, nearly a thousand dollars were collected by the councils.

“The total amount of money that has been collected throughout the week was approximately $900,” said Bigelow.

Once the money has been collected, each class council shops for gifts to give to their assigned families. Each family that has been selected by the program fills out a form that says what they want, and the student shoppers search for the items on the list.

“Gifts are purchased specifically by having the designated family members fill out their gift choice, as well as that of their children,” said Bigelow about the gift selection.

Allison Neslund, a member of Senior Class Council, helped make the purchases for Adopt-a-Family.

Neslund said that when buying gifts for each family, council members “take the money that we [the class councils] collected during lunches and English classes, and divide the money accordingly for each family, ensuring that we spend the same amount of money per person in the family.”

Aidan Checkett, a member of Senior Class Council, was also one of the student shoppers for Adopt a Family.

“Members of each council shop for their own assigned family, who were picked by coordinating with elementary school counselors,” Checkett said. “We [the council members] get together to go to a retail store to pick out the items.”

After all of the gifts were wrapped, and every council member has helped organize the gifts by family, class council administrators send these boxes to the designated families.

Neslund enjoyed the distribution of the presents to the families.

“It’s our little contribution to the community, and it seems like it’s not really a big deal, but knowing that kids are going to have great big smiles on their faces this holiday season because of us [class council members is] an incredible scene and feeling,” said Neslund. “Adopt-a-Family is a really incredible chance to help less fortunate families in the community to have an amazing holiday, so it’s just an incredible way for us to give back to the community.”