Donating dinners at holiday time

As a part of an ongoing tradition, members of the Lawrence Teachers Association, staff and student volunteers distributed full turkey dinners to needy district families three days before Christmas.

Rachel Kreiss, the secretary for the Lawrence Teachers Association said names of the needy families are given to the LTA by the social workers in the district’s Number Two, Four and Five schools as well as the middle and high school.

“We ask teachers to donate a minimum of five dollars towards the dinners,” Kreiss said. “This year the teachers were very generous.”

Lawrence High School social studies teacher Hugh Walker organized this year’s distribution and said it has been a tradition for the Lawrence Teachers Association for 20 years. “It’s awesome to help families in our schools,” he said. “We’re going to keep doing this as long as we can.”

Pete Hurley, a Special-Education biology teacher at the high school was also on hand to help with putting the dinners together at the Number Two School.

He said felt touched when he brought a dinner out to a woman’s car and the hugged him and started to cry. “That’s what it’s all about at Christmas time,” Hurley said.

Three student volunteers also aided in the distribution and received community service credit for their time. Kristin Greco, said she didn’t know about the turkey dinners until her friends, fellow Lawrence High School juniors, Stella Zarobinski and Jasmine Martinez, asked her to come along and help.

“I feel sorry for these people because they’re not as fortunate,” Greco said. “But I want to help anyway I can.”

Martinez echoed Greco’s thinking and said helping out makes her happy because she is helping other people. “I think other students should come help out,” she said. “Because when they see the people’s faces, it will make them happy too.”