Ancient Lakes students collect hats, gloves
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 6 months, 1 week AGO
From left: Teacher Kayla Hoffer and her second-grade highly-capable class of Charlie McCormick, Emma Evens and Bella Wall, along with Kids Hope’s resident fur buddy Valor, show off the hats, gloves and scarves the students collected in the space of a month.
JOEL MARTIN/COLUMBIA BASIN HERALD
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | December 6, 2024 3:00 AM
QUINCY — Three students at Ancient Lakes Elementary School in Quincy have made winter a little warmer for some folks.
“(They collected) 97 pairs of gloves, 93 hats and eight scarves,” said teacher Kayla Hoffer.
The three girls — Emma Evens, Bella Wall and Charlie McCormick — makes up Hoffer’s Highly-Capable second-grade class, and they started collecting winter clothing Nov. 4, they said. They were gathered Tuesday in Hoffer’s classroom with Elisa Adolphsen and Trisha Glenn from Kids Hope and Det. Jacob Fisher with the Grant County Sheriff’s Office to turn over the trove to Kids Hope. Valor, the four-legged confidant from Kids Hope, was also there.
“We’ve been getting donations from our school and now we’re going to give them to the community,” Emma said.
The students were looking for a project to take on and the subject of a coat drive came up, Hoffer wrote in an email to the Columbia Basin Herald. But once they realized how many other organizations were collecting coats, they shifted gears and looked at hats and gloves, because even with a coat on, heads and hands get cold.
“(The hats and gloves) are going to go to the Children's Advocacy Center (which is) Kids Hope,” Adolphsen said. “We serve both Grant and Adams Counties and we’re co-located with New Hope, so if there are families in need from the other side, we’ll make sure they get some as well.”
“They also work very closely with (Child Protective Services), so they’ll have those families in contact with them as well,” Fisher said.
According to Hoffer, the vast majority of the work was done by the students.
“They have designed and planned everything with very little help from me,” she wrote. “I'm simply their little worker bee with access to the computer.”
The students were happy to see their efforts do some good, but just handing them over in a box wasn’t their preferred method of distribution, Charlie said.
“Bella said she wanted to stand in the back of a truck and throw gloves out,” she said.
The trio was already thinking about what kind of a project to take on after the winter break is over. Emma thought they might try picking up garbage in the spring.
“Maybe we could get the whole school to do it on Earth Day,” she said.
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Open Doors students overcome obstacles to graduate Thursday
MOSES LAKE — It was a short walk across the room, but for the 34 students who graduated from Open Doors Thursday it was the end of a long journey. “I had the motivation I needed to finish school, but not the tools,” said student speaker Mona Martin. “That's when I was directed to Open Doors. Thanks to the support and resources I received there, I was able to make up four years of math and English and pass my GED test with a qualifying score.” Open Doors is a reengagement program established in 2010 to enable students 16-21 years of age, who have left school before graduating, to finish out their high school education. Some students go there to earn their GED, others to earn a high school diploma and some, like Martin, had already earned the GED but wanted to go the extra mile.
The Side Project to play in Moses Lake – for real, this time
MOSES LAKE — When The Side Project takes the stage June 20, the city of Moses Lake’s Summer Concert Series will pick up where it left off, sort of. “They were supposed to be our last concert last summer,” said Jenni Shelton, creative programs coordinator for the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center. “It was the night of a really bad storm, and we had to cancel for the weather. It was one of the nights they even evacuated to the Gorge (Amphitheatre).” The Side Project consists of wife-and-husband Suzie and Ben Bradford, according to its website. The duo, originally from Spokane, have recorded six albums and have performed up and down the west coast for 20 years, according to the announcement. Their music has been broadcast in Starbucks and featured on television shows “Dancing with the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” as well as scoring a positive review in Music Connection Magazine.
Moses Lake Library story time serves special needs adults
MOSES LAKE — It’s 10:30 on a Thursday morning, and Moses Lake Children’s Librarian Zach Walker is reading a picture book to brothers David and Ray Cavazos, two non-verbal men with special needs. “The boys love it,” said the brothers’ caregiver Mary Lybbert. “They ask every week when they can come to the library.”