As always, the students of the Lenape Regional High School District came out in droves recently to help the less fortunate. The high school students at the four schools threw their efforts into a massive Goodwill collection campaign and donated thousands of pounds of used clothing to the non-profit organization.
Lenape Regional High School District Foundation of Leadership students and faculty advisers from each high school organized the community service project benefitting Goodwill. Proceeds from the sale of everything collected fund Goodwill’s job training programs and career services that help local residents with disabilities and disadvantages get to work, Goodwill representatives reported.
Cherokee High School dominated the competition, coming in first place with just more than 11,400 pounds of donated clothing. It collected 6,000 pounds more clothing than the closest high school, Seneca, which donated about 5,000 pounds.
Shawnee High School came in third place with 4,449 pounds of clothes and Lenape High School came in fourth with 3,991 pounds.
In total, the high schools of the LRHSD brought in just a bit more than 25,000 pounds of donated clothing.
Scott Agnew, athletic director at Cherokee High School and coordinator of the competition, said the results were incredible.
“We saw the numbers come out after the first week and we were interested to see whether we could sustain that lead. Honestly, I’m here on the weekends, at nights, and we couldn’t empty that bin fast enough,” he said. “Most of the time there were bags and boxes stacked around it. We probably should have had two to three bins for our school.”
Agnew said the students and the community really came through for the high school and did a great thing for the non-profit organization.
Juli Lundberg, public relations manager for Goodwill Industries of Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, said the schools came up big for the organization and exceeded expectations.
“The competition was a huge success and will be used as a model for approaching other school districts,” Lundberg said.
A donation box that sat outside of the school — which had been installed by Goodwill at the start of the competition — was constantly brimming with donated material throughout the competition.
Students had a little more than a month to collect as much clothing as they possibly could. With so many pounds being donated through all four schools, it took awhile for Goodwill to calculate the results.
