The COVID-19 pandemic has left families and communities reeling, and hardly anything about anyone’s daily lives today is the same as it was a year ago. As students and teachers, we have had to completely change the way we learn, just as doctors and nurses have had to change the way they treat people.
Each class at Gorham High School (GHS) elects four officers at the end of each school year for the following school year. The officers are responsible for fundraising for the class to save money for their senior year activities and are responsible for making sure their class feels involved.
The four officers for the Class of 2022 elected this year are: president Kate Dupuis; vice president Erin Castonguay; secretary Brady Sawyer; and treasurer Dylan Morrell.
Coming into this school year, we had no idea if we would even be able to host any class fundraising events like we had in previous years. Like everyone else during this time, we were also forced to rethink our approach and find new ways to make money for our class.
When we really started thinking about what we wanted to do, we all agreed that our class was in a good place financially, and that fundraising could be put on the back burner for now. Instead of using our time to plan fundraisers, we really wanted to use this year to give back to our community. We brainstormed some ideas, and then reached out to our class, because we wanted them to be passionate and involved in whatever we decided to do.
Photo courtesy of Gorham High SchoolGorham High School Class of 2022 class officers Kate Dupuis, Erin Castonguay, Dylan Morrell, and Brady Sawyer decided to focus on giving back to their Gorham community this past year instead of the typical fundraising events for their class.
In the end, we decided we really wanted to do something for the Gorham House community because they have been so isolated during the pandemic. We compiled holiday messages from our class into a video that we sent over to the residents. We also reached out to the Gorham Backpack Program to see if there was anything we could help them with, which resulted in a Jelly Drive, donating 75 bottles of squeezable jelly.
The Class of 2022 is also currently involved in a pen-pal program with two first grade classes from Great Falls Elementary School. Juniors have been paired up with a first grader, and every couple of weeks they will write letters that can be dropped off at the elementary schools, and the first graders will have a chance to write back and ask questions.
This is an awesome opportunity for Gorham’s younger students to form relationships with high school students and learn about the high school experience, which is especially important in a year when most visiting mentor programs are not allowed. We are hoping to expand the program later to include more elementary classes and more juniors.
Overall, this year has been extremely rewarding for us as officers, and for many members of our class, to know we are making a difference in our community, and, hopefully, making this difficult time better for many people in the community.
Moving forward, giving back to our Gorham community will continue to be a big part of what we do as a class; we only have a little over a year left as Gorham students, and we want the legacy we leave to be a positive one.