The students from the Jersey Shore Future Business Leaders of America have been busy the last couple of months with involvement in service projects that benefit Jersey Shore and the surrounding area communities.

During this past November and December, the students focused on a project which was to fill 1,000-holiday meal boxes to be distributed at the New Love Center in Jersey Shore in December and April. As the club, school district, and entire community came together to give back during the holiday season; the goal was successfully surpassed.

Each holiday meal box contained a whole turkey, two cans of green beans, two cans of corn, two boxes of stuffing, two cans of gravy, one can of cranberry sauce, one can of pumpkin, and one can of evaporated milk. Each school in the district was assigned a different food item to donate towards the boxes, and individual goals were set for schools. All of the schools knocked their goals out-of-the-park with Avis Elementary donating 950 cans of evaporated milk, Salladasburg Elementary bringing in 916 cans of cranberry sauce, Jersey Shore Elementary: a whopping 2,305 boxes of stuffing, Jersey Shore Middle School: 1,508 cans of corn, and Jersey Shore Senior High School donating 1,898 cans of turkey gravy. The faculty and staff across the entire district also donated 1,912 cans of green beans. A total of 9,489 food items were donated in three short weeks, surpassing the goal of 5,000 items. Due to the generosity of the community, the excess food items that were donated will be utilized to fill the 500 boxes in the spring.

Along with the food donations, monetary funds were raised for the project. These funds were donated for various uses in the school district and community. The weSHOREcare project provided $190 of the funds to cover the Advanced Placement (AP) testing fees for high school students who receive free and reduced lunch. A total of $15,945.47 was donated to The New Love Center to cover the cost of the turkeys that were distributed in December, and due to the excess donations, they will also be able to provide Easter Meal Boxes to be distributed in April, and provide necessary funding for the Backpack Program for JSASD, which sends backpacks full of food home with students who do not have stable access to food at home on the weekend.

The weSHOREcare project this year also focused on assisting the YWCA Northcentral PA for two different projects. The first project was to provide birthday boxes for clients with young children who are living at the YWCA. The boxes will contain small presents or gift cards, a cake mix, candles, birthday hats, and other items needed to make a child’s birthday extra special. The remaining funds will also cover the implementation of an outdoor playground for the children to have a safe place to play and exercise outside. The funds for all of these projects were raised throughout the year by students and community members through generous business donations and the Day of Caring project.

The members of the Jersey Shore FBLA feel strongly about the positives they think their involvement in these various service projects brings.

Samantha Machmer said, “The weSHOREcare project has opened my eyes to how generous people are in helping those in need. It was so heartwarming to see how the community came together to give back.”

This from Lexey Cohick, “The weSHOREcare Project was a really encouraging project to be a part of. It was amazing to see all of the community and the school district get together and work as a team. The support we have gotten was just an overwhelming feeling. It’s nice to know that all the hard work we put into this project really impacted the community in such a fantastic way. We are all just really excited to see where the next years will take us in weSHOREcare.”

Blaine Mann stated, “The WeShoreCare project changed my perspective of helping people when we helped with the distribution, all I could think about was how appreciative the people were when we would give them their food.”

FBLA Chapter President Stephanie Steinbacher concluded, “It was a really amazing feeling to see the whole community and district come together to support the weSHOREcare project. Distribution day is my favorite part of the project because we get to go to the New Love Center and actually give the meal boxes to members of our community and see how much of an impact we have on our town. As freezing cold as it was on that day, it was still heart-warming to see how happy everyone was to receive a meal box.”