MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) - Shianne Simmers is a senior at Mason City Alternative High School, and for much of the past couple weeks, she’s been a little bit more excited than usual to go to school.
Simmers and her classmates have been busy working on “Buddy Blankets” to deliver to the elementary schools in the Mason City Community School District - just in time for the holidays.
Buddy Blankets is a project the alternative school has participated in for a number of years. Teachers and administrators at each of the four elementary schools in the district pick three students in their building who might need a blanket, and students at the alternative school make them.
“I think that these kids deserve a little special present, so that’s what we make,” Simmers told the Mason City Globe Gazette.
This year, some students who made the blankets will deliver the blankets directly to the elementary school students.
“I’m just so excited to see their little faces,” Simmers said. “Just being able to have them light up and get so excited to be happy about something that I made for them is so exciting. I’m an artist and I like making stuff for people. When I get to see people like the things that I make, it makes me so happy.”
The blankets are made with two 3-by-4-feet squares of fleece that are put on top of each other, cut every couple of inches around the sides and then tied together.
Stephanie Waters, a teacher at the alternative school, says she hopes that in the process of making these blankets and giving them away, the kids can take a life lesson out of it.
“Some of our kids really get into it. It makes them feel good that they can do something for somebody else, because a lot of these kids don’t have very much stuff,” Waters said. “They get to feel like they can give that back.”
For three students at each of Hoover, Jefferson, Harding and Roosevelt Elementary Schools, the cold winter season will be a little bit warmer this year. Even though making small blankets is a small gesture, it’s not lost among the students and staff how important something like that could be for them.
“It’s nice to do something for someone else and know that this is going to be a nice gift for somebody,” junior Kyah Torres said. “It could mean a lot to a kid and that’s what I always think. It’s a small thing, like this is just a blanket. But some kids need blankets.”
This project is a good reminder that school doesn’t always have to be about books and grades. To see students get excited about giving back is a heart-warming experience, according to Waters.
“The kids can actually like doing something,” Waters said. “This is kind of a good end to this crazy year.”
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