Library

As the semester and year come to an end, students and staff have the opportunity to participate in various winter activities on campus. 

The library is offering different activities for students to participate in to win prizes. 

Ray Holmes, librarian, said there is always an annual winter reading challenge with coloring sheets that students can pick up.

For every hour a student reads, they fill in a section of the picture on the coloring sheet. When they fill up the page, they can turn it in, which gets them entered for the prizes that are currently on display in the window in front of the library.

“Using the coloring sheets creates a fun way to track your reading throughout the next couple of months,” Holmes said. “Every year we try to do something different around the holiday season, so this year we’ve got a couple of additional things going on.”

Another event the library is doing is Yeti Hide and Seek. 

Every day there is a stuffed yeti hidden somewhere around in the library. Students who find it can fill out a Google form that enters them in to be either a daily winner of some candy, or if students can find the yeti 10 times before break, they get entered in to win one of the bigger prizes displayed in the window outside of the front of the library, such as a huge candy cane filled with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. 

The final activity is the winter library boxes. 

The idea for each box is the librarians will it with treats and check out two books to each student that they think the students will enjoy based on what they shared in a Google Form submission. The first five students to fill out the form on the winter box flyer will get a box full of personalized book recommendations from the librarians.

“We want to get people excited for the holiday season,” Holmes said. “We have almost a few weeks off for break and what better way to spend your time than with a good book.”

Gift Wrapping

Besides these events, various organizations are holding fundraisers to raise money for their clubs during this holiday season. 

The Equity and Belonging Club is teaming up with the Festival of Nations organizers to have a gift-wrapping fundraiser. Students and staff can bring in presents on Friday, Dec. 15, and volunteers will wrap them. The cost to wrap small gifts is $2 and $4 for larger presents. 

Shelly Justin, Language Arts Teacher, said the money raised will go toward having a Festival of Nations later this year. 

Justin encourages teachers and parents to donate small materials such as wrapping paper, bows, tape and name tags. 

“Last year when planning the Festival of Nations, we started with no budget. We had no money to pay anyone to do anything,” Justin said. “We decided this year to try to raise more money ahead of time so that we could get different people to come in and be able to help offset some of the costs for some of the families who have booths who might need some kind of materials.”

Candy Grams

The Junior Class officers are selling candy cane grams during the lunch shifts through Tuesday, Dec. 12, to raise money for Prom. Students can buy them for $1 and write a message for their friends and such. 

Kendall Creech, Junior Class secretary, is part of the group that put on the candy gram fundraiser.

“We have to gain a certain amount of money so doing the candy grams is getting us started for making that profit,” Creech said.

The grams are made up of candy canes that come with little cards on which people write the name of who they’re giving the candy gram to, and then they can sign the card so people know who gave them the gram.

“It’s a way to get people to buy holiday candy for others and to get people to start off break happy,” Creech said.

The candy grams will be handed out next week.