St. Jude students giving back to troops, community

St. Jude Thaddeus School is tracking the work its students are doing to help others this Christmas season, both locally and overseas.

In the foyer of the school, a paper thermometer is taped up to the wall, flanked by a mountain of non-perishable food and the red tracker shows 528 pounds. Just up the stairs in Carly Brunk's eighth-grade class, students began stuffing stockings with candy canes and games for troops in Afghanistan.

Brunk said the stockings are a sort of follow-up to last month's candy drive, in which St. Jude's students brought in left-over Halloween candy which they sent along with letters to soldiers overseas. She added that she thought of the idea after she had shipped off the candy and letters last month.

This is Sgt. Clay Nottingham's - Brunk's son - second deployment. Stationed at Bagram Air Force Base, Nottingham is assigned to Montana Army National Guard's 495th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion.

This is the first time that St. Jude's has done this type of activity at Christmas, Brunk said.

Brunk said the unit is in Afghanistan until March and then they return to the U.S. She added that she hopes the students can do something for Valentine's Day and send those off to get to the soldiers before they leave.

With her son coming back, Brunk said, she hopes to find out if any other units are going to be deployed, or are already deployed, and could use some hometown support.

"I love, one, that we're bringing some Montana to Afghanistan," she added. "But, two, I like that these kids get to learn that this is giving, this is service, this is supporting their deployment. Supporting the fact that they're going to be away from their families for Christmas. It's difficult. It's always harder for the people left behind because they're going for a mission, they have a goal in mind. For me as a mom, I don't have my son for Christmas."

Brunk said that some of the students asked if they could fill stockings for the same service members they wrote letters to previously, and she let them.

"I think it's a great way for the kids to just remind the troops that they're not forgotten," St. Jude pastor Father Daniel J. Wathen said, "that Christmas is a time in which we celebrate peace and that they're in our prayers. ... It's kind of a way to celebrate Christmas when they're unable to be with their families."

Several St. Jude eighth-graders said they liked sending stockings to the soldiers.

"I think it's a good way to help soldiers feel appreciated," Chase Thompson added.

Isaac Pedraza said it was thoughtful and "a good way to show appreciation for what they (the soldiers) do."

"I think it's just, it's a nice activity that we can all do. I mean we can show appreciation for the soldiers even if we don't know them personally," Mackenzie Kuhn said. "I mean, I don't know if they get this kind of stuff that often. So I think it would be a nice treat. Especially around the holiday season when they're away from their families to get presents."

St. Jude Principal Mike Haugen said he thought the stockings were a good idea and was happy to see the kids get excited about it.

St. Jude's has participated in food drives in the past and donated their items to local organizations. This year however, Haugen decided to make the food drive more personal for the students.

Haugen said he got the idea from a Thanksgiving food drive he participated in when he was working at Gonzaga Preparatory in Spokane, Washington. The demographics for certain families were shared with the school and then split amongst the classes.

Each class room began bringing in food to give the families that were assigned to them.

"I wanted to bring that here," he added. "It just makes it more real for the kids."

Deacon Tim Maroney said he called the Salvation Army and asked them for four families that could use help this year. The names came from the Angel Tree, Maroney added, which is typically for families who could use presents, clothing or other items this season, but, at his request, the contact at the Salvation Army provided the names for four families who could also use assistance with food.

Maroney then gave the family demographics, such as ages and number of kids in the family, to Haugen.

He added that because the families were taken off the Angel Tree, they would not be able to receive the presents as usual. Wathen then spoke to the congregation about the four families and received donations for presents.

Haugen said he split the school into four teams: eighth-, seventh-, sixth- and fifth-grade. He then paired the remaining lower grades with those four. While it is a competition between the four teams, Haugen said, the competition has no prizes.

"There is competition involved, but really the driver is, we have this family we need to take care of and we have a responsibility to this family," he said.

Haugen added that he likes hearing the different classrooms erupt in cheers as their food totals are called out each morning.

Brunk said the food drive started this past Monday and will run through next Tuesday. As of this morning, St. Jude's had accumulated 852 pounds of food.

Haugen added that Wednesday, he and Maroney and other volunteers will deliver the food to the families.

Brunk said they already surpassed their goal of giving 100 pounds of food to each family and plan on giving any leftover food to the Havre Food Bank.

"I really like the way it's become a drive for the kids," she added. "They actually feel like they're making a difference. Just in two days, how much food we raised, or you know, brought in. And, 'Wow we can do this as a team, we can really do this.' This cooperative effort is awesome."

Wathen said he felt like the kids have responded really well to the food drive this year and have raised more this year than in past years.

"So often, this season is about what am I going to get for presents and being able to get people thinking about what are the needs of others and also identifying and responding to those needs," he added. "Really excited about what we're doing as a whole, to get them from their presents and what's happening for them under the tree to what other people need."

Haugen said he wants his future graduates to have a sense of "service leadership" when they leave St. Jude Thaddeus School.