Would you like juice with that?

Last Friday the National Honor Society kids put on their annual blood drive for the Red Cross. Every year, the NHS kids organize and host this worthy event. They go to senior government classes and junior US History classes to talk to the kids old enough to donate. (You have to be 17 or older.) They sign up as many kids as the Red Cross can handle. This year they had 163. They take over the back gym, and the life saving donations happen all day.



Typically when you give blood, the Red Cross gives you a cookie and some juice in return. Losing a pint or two of blood isn't harmful to your system, but it does affect you. People are often light headed for awhile after, and it's not uncommon for kids to faint when they return to class.


A girl in my 3rd hour class is the press secretary for NHS, so she was heavily involved in the planning, recruiting, and running of the blood drive. She came back to class one day after having been gone doing some last minute things, to see what she had missed. I filled her in and then asked how the blood drive was going. She was excited and said it was going really well. The only thing they were still worried about was getting enough cookies and juice. I was surprised and asked why they had to get them, didn't the Red Cross provide them? She said they weren't doing it this year. The problem with this is that they didn't inform the kids in enough time to go solicit donations. They approached Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart said they didn't do that sort of thing anymore. They approached Costco, and Costco said sure, but we have to send it to the corporate office for approval. That takes up to four weeks. The kids didn't have four weeks. They approached Yoke's (a local grocery store) and Yoke's gave them two cases of water bottles and a $30 gift card to be used for whatever else they needed.


That's fantastic, and far more generous than any of the other stores were, but seriously. How are they going to do juice and cookies for 163 kids with $30?


K said that they were depending on kids in NHS to bring in cookies and bread and juice. They were hoping for juice boxes or pouches as pouring into cups could be time consuming and create a lot of mess. I told K that I had a box of cookie dough in my freezer that I had purchased from the girls' soccer team fundraiser. I didn't have time to cook them, but if she knew someone who would, she was welcome to the box. She gratefully accepted and volunteered her mom to bake that evening. In all honesty, I probably could have done it, the cookie dough was in preformed little discs that just needed to be dropped onto a cookie sheet, but I hate to bake. I only bought the box because I usually will buy from one kid from most fundraisers.


Anyway, K followed me to my house after school, I gave her the cookies, and she was on her way. When J got home, I was telling him about the situation, and he got kind of righteous. He said, "That's RIDICULOUS! The Red Cross is going to come to your school, use your space, and get TONS of blood from YOUR kids, but then isn't even going to give them juice and cookies? If they were adults at a business I bet they'd have some damn cookies and juice to give away."


I've said that J is one of the kindest people I know, and what followed just further cemented it in my mind.


I could see the wheels start turning in his head, and he wanted to know again how many kids were going to be donating. He asked about the cookies, and I told him that K had said she was most concerned about juice, she thought most people would be bringing cookies.


He told me to get my coat, we were going to the grocery store.


At the grocery store, J picked out enough juice to take care of 70 kids, and told me to take it to work in the morning. All the while muttering about how lame it is to treat kids that way.


When I got to school, there was a pep assembly, so I headed down to the gym. The assembly was in the big gym, right next to the small gym where the blood drive was. I found K, handed over my car keys, and told her there were seven boxes of juice from my husband in the car. She was SO grateful, it totally made my day.


J talks a gruff game, but he's a softie deep down. This sort of thing is typical for him.


Every year SHS adopts approximately 70 families during the holidays. Each homeroom class has their own family to serve. Two years ago, my 2nd hour class was assigned a family so large that we were teamed up with a class just down the hall. There was a mom and eight or nine kids. The oldest was 17 and the youngest was 14 months. My seniors were excited, but a little concerned that they might not be able to get enough stuff, even when paired with the other class. You see, the other class was a group of freshmen, and they seemed to be unenthusiastic at first about this project. It turns out they were mostly intimidated to be teamed up with seniors, because towards the end they really pulled through with clothing, especially.


J was with me at school one evening, and he saw some of the stuff in my room. Then he saw the list taped to the white board that detailed everything the family had said they needed and the gifts they requested for the kids. He asked me a few questions, and then sat down at the overhead and wrote my seniors a note. He told them to keep bringing in food and clothes, and gently used items that would fit the families needs, but that whatever cash they collected amongst themselves in addition to buy the stuff they couldn't get elsewhere, he would match it up to $100.


And he did. The kids in my class alone collected $85, so J matched it for them. They were able to almost completely take care of all the toys themselves! The other class really pulled through with donated clothes and food, so it was mostly just presents that were left. We had one new outfit for every kid, lots of gently worn outfits, and at least two gifts. There was even money left over, so they voted on a $60 gift card to Wal-Mart.


They couldn't have done so much without J, and it was cool to see. He truly is a giant teddy bear, even though he'd rather people think he is tough and scary.