In the News: High school classes adopt four families

For the third consecutive year students of Silver School at Newberg High School adopted local families in need of a little Christmas cheer.
The helm of Adopt-a-Family was taken by two juniors this year, Danae Hanley, 16, and Kyra Abbott, 17. Friday morning, with the help of classmates from their advisory, they were wrapping presents on the floor of a classroom. “Yesterday we actually went shopping for like four hours for the families,” Abbott said.

While in years past the program catered to more than half-a-dozen families, adviser Jennifer Livingston said she recommended the girls only select four families this year. “We could tell that people were tightening their belts this year,” she said, and she figured it might be tough to give a good Christmas to each family.

Hanley said it was the first year she and Abbott were so deeply involved in the project. “We wanted to do a senior project together,” she said. They assigned each grade one family and ran the fundraiser as a contest to spur people into giving more. “Each grade was competing against the other ones,” Hanley said.

“It actually went really well,” Abbot said. “We got a lot of cash donations, which was really great.”

The pair didn’t have an accurate tally as of Friday morning but estimated they’d received $500 to $600.

The hardest items to shop for were the clothes, they agreed, because despite having size and genders it’s hard to figure out the right size for a good fit. Hanley found that buying boys toys was easier because she has younger cousins and knew what they would like.

The pair didn’t know who would be receiving the gifts — all they knew was that they lived in Newberg. It made sense to them that the families remained anonymous, as some of the children were teenagers and could be classmates.

“We are just respecting their privacy ... so nobody gets embarrassed,” Hanley said.

By: Laurent Bonczijk, Newberg Graphic