As the brisk winds of November swept through the halls of ADM High School, a spirit of kindness and generosity spread among our school. The November Month of Giving, led by Ella Goodrich, Lilly Kruse, and the student council, has left an

indelible mark on the Adel community. A committee was formed for the upcoming month as Goodrich and Kruse knew it would be a large task. Each member of the committee worked hard to come up with fun ideas to get students involved and give back.

Drawing from the successes of the previous year, the committee curated a month of activities that were fun and entertaining as well as trying to reach their goals of giving back. Previous ideas that were used were the food drive and the beloved Puppy Minutes. Last year AHeinz brought larger dogs but this year they had four adorable puppies. Students and teachers could pay a dollar a minute to play with the puppies which was a huge hit. Every dollar that the student council made was donated right back to AHeinz to help support their mission of finding every rescue dog, their own home.

During the school day power hour sessions were available with Mrs. Miller that focused on cleaning up the school as well as writing thank you notes. Many members from the student council along with other students signed up to participate. This was an easy way for students to spend 30 minutes of their day doing something nice for someone else. The committee had to collaborate with the Adel food pantry to come up with a list of items that were needed. They were able to be creative by having items that the food pantry was low in stock, be worth more points in hopes students would bring in more of those items. The idea worked out great and the food pantry was extremely grateful that they would be able to successfully support the community through the holidays.

Behind all of these activities, there was hard work and dedication to giving back. After speaking with Ella Goodrich she said that the hardest part of planning the November Month of Giving was getting started on organizing and setting goals and deadlines. The committee had to be creative in marketing to high school students to get them interested in giving. Social media, posters around the school, and student representatives in every advisory this year got the word out. They found that this was the best way to spread information about the activities that were offered.

Goodrich said “I think my favorite activity to offer was the power hour opportunities or the Puppy Minutes. Both were very successful, especially the Puppy Minutes because it brought so much joy to many people as well as raising money to give back to AHeinz.” Now as we look back on all the experiences we had to give back we can carry these out through the rest of the year by taking ideas from the month such as volunteering, donating, or writing thank you cards to better our community.