A couple of Harrison County High School seniors have been spearheading a project to help some local kids who could use some cheering up.
Sophia Bowlin and Whitney Dunaway are the president and vice president of the Harrison County High School's Future Farmers of America chapter. The two are passionate about service projects.
"In FFA, our motto is 'Living to Serve'," Dunaway said.
"It's just something that we think is really important, to be a leader in your community is to be a servant," Bowlin said.
They have tackled a lot of service projects over the years.
"We pack meals for underprivileged families in Haiti, we packed almost 30,000 this year, I think. We just get together one morning and lots of people show up from the community. It's a really good community event to bring our community together and we pack meals for those families in Haiti and we kind of turn it into a competition between each table group, who can pack the most boxes," Bowlin said.
This project is a little closer to home. For the last month, the Harrison County High School FFA members have been collecting stuffed animals of all kinds. Tomorrow's homecoming game will be the big finish.
"We're hoping that the people coming to the basketball game will bring teddy bears and during the halftime of the boys' game, we will have a countdown and then we're just going to have everybody throw all the teddy bears onto the court," Bowlin said.
On Tuesday, they'll make a special delivery to the Shriner's Hospital for Children in Lexington.
"It's just something we want to do to show these kids that we want to bring them a little bit of joy since they unfortunately have to be in the hospital around this time of year," Bowlin said.
They had hoped for 200 stuffed animals, but it appears they'll exceed those expectations by a long shot.
"I'm thinking over 500 at least! We have 300. We know that members are still bringing them in and students in ag classes are still bringing them in," Dunaway said.
They will also accept donations of new or lightly-used stuffed animals from people who can't make it to the game. They just need them delivered to the high school by Tuesday.
"We'll do whatever we can to make sure that everyone who wants to donate can donate," Bowlin said.
The girls game is Friday night at 6:00 and the boys game is immediately following. They will do the teddy bear toss at halftime of the boys game.
