On August 25, Hurricane Harvey made landfall, displacing over 560,000 families. The Sheldon ID School District in Houston was hit hard, with four schools closing due to damages.

The Greeley West AVID program adopted the high school C. E. King High School as their sister AVID School and started fundraising to send the school supplies, including backpacks and basic school supplies.

In all, the final count of the money raised was $2210, which went to purchase 50 backpacks, 115 binders, 100 packs of notebook paper, 100 packs of notebooks, and 3240 writing utensils (pens and pencils).

The AVID program did their fundraiser as two parts. The first was a school-wide money drive, when AVID students came around to homerooms and collected all the spare change that was available. In all, this money drive raised $559.78. The second part was a competition between all four classes on who could raise the most money.

“It was nice to see our school community do something that would impact other AVID students who were impacted by the hurricane without fanfare or a reward for their efforts,” sophomore AVID teacher Stephen Paulson said in a statement.  “We’re really proud of the students who understand that the AVID family extends beyond the walls of our high school.”

Most of the fundraising for this part was done outside of school, however the juniors decided to stay at Greeley West.  The junior AVID class set up a “kissing booth” in the lobby at lunch. The concept was if anyone who donated got a Hershey’s kiss. The fundraiser ended on Friday.

“In my opinion, the kissing booth worked really well,” junior Minnie Marquez said. “Not everyone used it, but people still donated.”

“It was nice to see our school community do something that would impact other AVID students who were impacted by the hurricane without fanfare or a reward for their efforts,” sophomore AVID teacher Stephen Paulson said in a statement.  “We’re really proud of the students who understand that the AVID family extends beyond the walls of our high school.”