The Link Crew leadership class has been working hard all year to give back to the community. From the environment to new students, this 16 person crew has been taking the volunteering world by storm.

“We do recycling on Fridays or Thursdays, whichever the B day is, and we take it all to a recycling center,” explained senior Fiona Moore. “We always check up on freshmen. We deliver yearbooks and we gave out cookie coupons for new students.”

In addition to the many projects they have been working on, they also manage a very sweet tradition: Spookygrams. 

“We are going to make different cards and shape them into ghosts, bats, skeletons, pumpkins. We are then going to put candy on the cards,” said junior Josi Hewes. “We will have people buy them and write to their friends or teachers. [It’s] just something fun to do for Halloween.”

This class isn’t just about helping the school out and selling confectionary treats. All the money they earn goes straight back to the community.

“We are working with the Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Care Foundation in a program called Communicare,” Link Crew Leadership and Spanish teacher Lisa Evonuk said. “In that program we choose a focus area for the year and we raise money towards that area. The Schnitzers match the money we earn times 10 and then we give the money to a nonprofit in our service area.”

In the past, the Link Crew leaders have donated over $15,000 a year to programs helping kids in the foster care system and victims of domestic and child abuse.

“The class is fun, you get to work with a variety of different kids in a lot of different areas. There’s no homework, there’s no tests,” Evonuk added. “We do projects that actually affect the people around us. You can feel good about the work that you’re doing reaching out to others.”