By Pete Smith
When the members of the Student Athletic Board at Creekside Middle School heard about the tornadoes that tore through Kokomo on Nov. 17, they knew they had to do something.
So Zachary Bradley, Carlos Burroughs, Zev Burton, Kiersten Carlson, Regan Claymon, Andrew Colombo, Nicholas Frey, Eddie Gill, Molly Gillig, Brooke Grigsby, Spencer Gudgel, Kate Hettiger, Rachel Lacy, Simon Melrose, Julia Miller, Zach Munson, Caleigh Ramey, Will Schmidt and Regan Watkins talked to Creekside’s athletic director, Randy Hartog, and they began gathering supplies and raising money.
Hartog said they raised $1,200 dollars and gathered about 100 bags of non-perishable food, clothes and health and hygiene products.
Then they loaded the supplies onto a school activity bus and a custodian’s truck and drove up to Maple Crest Middle School in Kokomo to give them to the school to pass out to families that needed immediate relief.
“It was an amazing experience to help out people who went through so much,” Hartog said, adding that he also appreciated that the five students who traveled to Kokomo with him got to see the end result of their efforts.
“It was an amazing opportunity for those kids,” he said. “It’s amazing being a part of this community and seeing the willingness to give back. It’s a blessing to be in a community like this.”
“Our students at Maple Crest Middle School were so touched that the students from Creekside Middle School in Carmel reached out to our school community,” Principal Katie Reckard said. “From the bottom of my heart, I am grateful for the outpouring of support received by our Maple Crest families from the Creekside students. In addition to the enormous amount of donated items for tornado relief victims in Kokomo, a generous monetary donation benefitted one of our Maple Crest families, whose home had been damaged by the tornadoes.”