Smithtown High School East counselor Kelly Brouthers and social worker Jeremy Melnick led a school-wide effort to help 22 local families who are less fortunate.

Through the Adopt-A-Family program, the two worked together to identify families who could benefit from some help, either in the form of toys for children or much-needed supplies such as toiletries and diapers.

Student clubs, athletic teams, individual students, staff and faculty members, and administrators donated time and items to check off on the respective families’ holiday wish lists. Community members also pitched in.

“Everyone deserves to open up at least one present for the holidays,” said Melnick, who noted that although all of the items distributed from the lists are new, some gently used items were also donated and made available to the families as

needed.

Photo courtesy of the Smithtown Central School District

While it might be the season of giving as the Christmas holiday approaches, some University of South Dakota student athletes try to live out the season of giving all of the time.

Morgan Hancock, a senior on the USD softball team, said representing the Coyotes goes beyond the field of play.

“It’s really easy to get caught up in just playing yo—ur sport, when in reality there is a bigger picture than that,” Hancock said. “The bigger picture is the community behind the sport.”

From volunteering at elementary schools, sending cards to soldiers or picking up trash in road ditches, various teams are participating in community service initiatives.

A number of athletes volunteer at schools in Vermillion because of their team’s requirements. Recently the men’s and women’s basketball teams have started encouraging Jolley Elementary students to read more.

Aside from promoting literacy, junior Keyen Lage and sophomore Jet Moreland have fun with the children by eating lunch or playing at recess with them.

“I want to be a good role model and a positive influence, because you never know what’s going on at home,” Lage said.

Junior Margaret McCloud, who plays center for women’s basketball, has been humbled by her experiences volunteering at the elementary schools with the women’s basketball team.

“I love seeing the effect it has on people,” McCloud said. “Volunteering also opens my eyes and makes me realize the things I take for granted.”

Some athletes find the motivation to give back to others from their upbringing.

“My biggest motivation to serve is my faith,” said Lage. “I’m always trying to put others first.”

However, each person does community service for different reasons.

“I enjoy it, and it is important to give back to the community,” said Moreland, who volunteers alongside Lage at local elementary schools.

Football’s defensive line coach Marquice Williams quoted Chicago Bears’ head coach Marc Trestman, who has a philosophy about his players volunteering in the community.

“If you aren’t doing something right, you’re not helping the team,” Williams said. “So I translate it to, if you aren’t doing something in the community, you aren’t helping the community.”

Athletes are encouraged to do community service in a variety of ways, and some of the coaches encourage it more than others.

For the softball team, the coaches emphasize becoming the most well-rounded people possible.

“Our coach wants us to leave the program by being the best athlete, best student and best person we could,” Hancock said.

An idea commonly shared among athletes is that volunteering makes a better athlete.

“I look up to a lot of professional athletes, and you see them donating money or helping out with fundamental camps,” Moreland said. “It builds confidence when people look up to you and makes you feel stronger as an athlete.”

Hancock believes volunteering is worth it, especially after seeing the impact it can have on people’s lives.

“In the past, we have (written) letters to send soldiers during the holidays,” Hancock said. “Once, a soldier Facebooked the girl who sent it and told us that was the thing that got him through the holiday season.”

Source: http://volanteonline.com/2014/12/athletes-give-back-community-volunteering/

With Christmas wish lists in hand, Yale hockey players Hanna Åström, Rachelle Graham, and Ali Austin went out in search of gifts that would bring some joy to a little boy in kindergarten and a girl in second grade.

The children — both students at the Augusta Lewis Troup School in New Haven — had asked for some essentials like a winter coat, a bed comforter, and some towels, but the Yale athletes had the most fun selecting some surprises for the children, among them Spiderman figurines, a remote control car, and a doll of one of the characters in the popular Disney movie “Frozen.”

The women’s ice hockey squad was just one of the Bulldogs teams to take part in the annual Holiday Gift Giving Initiative, which is among the ways that student-athletes engage in service through the Athletic Department’s Thomas W. Ford ’42 Community Outreach Program. This year, 25 of Yale’s 33 varsity teams participated in the holiday gift drive. The athletes made monetary donations to the drive, and purchased and wrapped presents with teammates. All of the gifts were delivered by school bus to the Troup School on Dec. 9.

“Yale’s athletic teams bought gifts for over 30 Troup students whose families were not in the best situation to purchase holiday presents this year,” says ice hockey player Lynn Kennedy ’16, who coordinated this year’s drive with baseball player Alec Hoeschel ’17. “Each team pools individual donations from its athletes — which were around $5 to $8 — to buy gifts for a Troup student. The school supplied wish lists for the students. Each team was then matched with one or two children, with some teams offering to contribute to the gift-giving for one or two extra to make up for the few teams that didn’t participate this year.”

Kennedy and Hoeschel are the student representatives on the Yale Athletics Community Outreach Committee and worked closely during the drive with associate athletic director Jeremy Makins and Sam Burrell, a former Yale football and baseball coach who is now a community outreach consultant for the Athletics Department. Burrell began the Holiday Gift Giving Initiative nearly a decade ago as a way to engage the Yale athletes in their local community while simultaneously inspiring some teamwork among the athletes off of the fields, courts, and other competitive venues.

“I had a great time [shopping],” says Åström. “It is a lot more fun to buy presents for someone when you know that they will appreciate it. It really puts your own life in perspective. The two kids who we were shopping for mostly just had essentials such as bed sheets, toiletries, socks, and winter coats on their wish lists. It makes you realize how fortunate you are to be able to take all those things for granted.”

Austin describes the experience of seeing such basic necessities on children’s holiday wish lists as “humbling,” and adds, “It was really a great feeling to know we were helping to make two little kids’ Christmas a little better. … Throughout the whole experience, imagining how they’d feel seeing these presents and unwrapping them on Christmas morning was really the best part, and made it special for us.”

Kennedy noted that toys associated with the movie “Frozen” were among the most popular toys on the wish lists of young New Haven girls, while boys asked for basketballs, footballs, remote cars, and other toys. Necessities such as coats, hats, and scarves were also on many of the children’s lists.

The drive is a way that all of the athletes can be engaged in a common effort, notes Kennedy, whether by making a donation, or helping with the shopping, or wrapping the gifts. All of the donations are voluntary.

“We don’t want to put undue stress on any of our players [who might have difficulty contributing] to the drive,” says Kennedy. “For our team, I put up the money for the shopping, and my teammates reimbursed me.”

The holiday drive is just one outlet for community service that is popular with Yale Bulldogs athletes. Many of them also participate in Bulldog Buddies, a mentoring program at the Vincent Mauro Elementary School; make school and hospital visits to engage with local children; or participate in Big Brothers/Big Sisters, among other community endeavors.

“I feel strongly that Yale should give back to its local community,” says Kennedy. “For students, it’s nice to realize there is a whole world beyond our campus. During the holiday season, it’s not difficult for teams to pool together and get in the spirit of giving. We all like knowing that we’ve done something that will hopefully brighten someone’s day.”

Source: http://news.yale.edu/2014/12/15/teaming-holiday-spirit-yale-athletes-bring-smiles-faces-local-children

The Westhampton High School Beach varsity wrestling team has come together to raise money for the Live Your Cor Foundation and the Hurricane Mat Club through a Pin Pot campaign.
The fundraiser, according to coach Paul Bass, started earlier this year when his athletes said they wanted to do something in the name of Westhampton Beach graduate Cory Hubbard, who was struck by a car and passed away last January while crossing the street near his Maryland college.

While attending Westhampton Beach High School, Hubbard was a captain of the wresting team. The campaign asks for community members to pledge donations for every “pin” wresting players make at meets throughout February.
Half of the money raised, said Bass, will be donated to the Live Your Cor Foundation, which was started by Hubbard’s parents as a memorial to their son. The foundation provides money to families facing personal hardship and also provides scholarships to Westhampton Beach students. The remaining funding will go toward the Hurricane Mat Club, which provides funds for the wrestling team.

Bass noted that donations have been pouring in with pledges locked in at $5 and 10 cents per pin. On average, Bass said, his team, as a whole, makes about 217 pins per season. The team has set up a website for community members to make pledges and can be accessed at http://whbwrestling.net.

More than 40 members of the high school Interact Club and middle school National Junior Honor Society (which includes student athletes) teamed up with the Port Jefferson Rotary Club to help ready Camp Paquatuck for the winter.

The volunteers came together on Nov. 9 to rake and bag thousands of leaves and store picnic benches at the Center Moriches camp, which provides special needs children and young adults with camping experiences.

The volunteers plan to return in the spring to mulch flower beds, ready cabins and apply fresh paint to the dorm rooms and outer buildings.

Story courtesy of: http://www.portjeffschools.org/news/