On Tuesday, Nov. 9, students and faculty donated 273 care packages for the Miami Rescue Mission, as part of the dance team’s school-wide service project.

The Miami Rescue Mission, also known as The Caring Place, is a homeless shelter located in downtown Miami that services homeless individuals and families. Over 13 clubs participated in the project, each signing up to donate a particular item, that would then be assembled into individual care packages. The packages included men’s underwear, female underwear, socks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, and more personal hygiene products.

Performing Arts Chair and Dance Director Gerri Barreras organized the community event. “I think this was a great exercise in community development and I’m very proud of the many clubs that were able to donate,” Barreras said. “We hope to be able to redo this in the spring and maybe coordinate with Smiling Tummies to create these care packages again.”

Student government contributed to the project by donating over 130 pairs of socks.

“Socks are an easy thing for us to get, so I made sure the members of the student government donated six pairs of socks each,” Activities Director and Student Government sponsor Danielle Bowen said. “I think it’s fantastic for the school to be able to do these kinds of things. We’re very privileged and anything that we can do as a community to help those who have these challenges in life, we will do.”

Members of The Raider Voice and The Raider yearbook staffs signed up to donate packs of women’s and men’s underwear. Senior Julian Concepcion, The Raider Voice head photographer, shared his thoughts on the care packages.

“It’s been a while since something like this happened because of the year we had last year, so it honestly felt so nice to be part of the community again,” said Concepcion. “It was really inspiring to see a lot of students from other classes and clubs come together to load all of the care packages.”