Projects that are meant to help out the community in one way or another are not uncommon at Fossil Ridge High School. Every year, the senior advisory classes strike out and find all sorts of ways to provide community service. Even some clubs have requirements of giving time out to those in need.

What is not as common is for classes to do community service work. Benjamin DeGear’s United States Literature classes, however, decided on a variety of issues in the community and then gave out their time as a school project. Students in the class set out to address issues such as pollution, vaping, and homeless pets. One group, meanwhile, put on an event for the elementary students of the Fort Collins community.

Students Halle Johnson, Christa Wiggins, Brooke Thompson, Sophie Hadad, Taylor Bogumil, Brya Bauer, and Beth Farrand put on a book drive for students and then went to Bethke Elementary during Advisory and read stories to students in class. They claimed it was a definite success, with the kids enjoying every bit of it and the high schoolers walking out of it all with a smile on their faces. The goal of the project was to create an approachable and realistic project to help out kids in the local community. This goal was realized when they read all sorts of different things to the students, promoting them to expand their horizon of reading. The impact just doesn’t stop there, either, as the books received by the drive were donated to Kruse Elementary School.

Junior Taylor Bogumil recalled that, “It was really cool to be able to make the kids day that much better. This project went beyond our expectations, we weren’t expecting to get any books donated at all so to get five full boxes of books that was just incredible.”

Overall, the book drive was a win for the community of Fort Collins, promoting reading and learning to younger students while having high schoolers help their peers.