By Staff
Student Council members just completed the third annual pet food drive at Sister Lakes Elementary.
This year our school raised 225 pounds of pet food and 50 pounds of cat litter.
All proceeds went to the Cass County Animal Shelter, which was delivered last week.
Sister Lakes teachers and student council advisors, Rachel Kyncl and Kimberly Montgomery, felt that this was a community service project that many students could relate to and want to get involved with.
Pets seem to touch so many lives in our community that this drive seemed like the perfect way for our students to give back to our community.
In order to get the student body excited for the pet food drive, student council members made signs and hung them around the school.
We also "cheered on" students each day during our morning announcements.
This December, student council members also encouraged students to bring in non-perishable food items to help fill our Sister Lakes Lions Club food baskets.
We even hosted a "bring a food item and wear a hat" day.
The student body collected more than 300 non-perishable food items that consisted of canned and boxed foods.
One of our goals in student council is to encourage students to become lifelong contributors to our community.
We hope our students will find the intrinsic value in helping and making other lives better.
This is the fourth year that the student council at Sister Lakes has been active.
Some other activities include: hosting a month's worth of activities to raise money for Cass County Relay for Life (which raised around $2,500), making sun catchers for the former Dowagiac Nursing Home, popcorn sales, school spirit days, Sister Lakes Elementary shirt sales, purchasing books for the library and helping to sponsor activities that everyone in our school can enjoy.
One newer activity that student council members added last year was holding a pizza party for the third and fourth graders upon their completion of the MEAP.
This year, we continued with that idea and added our fifth graders as well.
We also included a pre-MEAP pep rally and music rap.
Lower grades also chose an upper grade to support as their MEAP buddies for the duration of the test. We wanted students to do their best!
Student council members and leaders are so excited by the response from parents, students and staff by their participation and support of the Sister Lakes Elementary Student Council!