MADISONVILLE, Texas — You often hear the phrase "it takes a village" when it comes to caring and looking after children. Yet, one local school district is applying that logic to the Madisonville community.
Madisonville Elementary teachers and staff decided to create a toiletry drive to help the community and their students are involved.
The Son-Shine Outreach Center was their biggest influencing factor, which used to be a clothing store until they tragically lost everything in a tornado last year. Kindergarten teacher Sara Villareal said they wanted to take action and help.
"The idea kind of just came from seeing a need in our community we thought about what could we do to tie our kids to the community," stated Villarreal. "Seeing the need through different Facebook posts with the Son-Shine Center, they're posting things like they need help with toiletry items, food drive items, clothes, and so we just thought maybe we can bring our students in and help the community through them."
They're looking for things like toothpaste and soap before their 100th day of school on February 1st. That day is also the deadline for when the drive concludes.
"We start in January and each classroom holds their own items, and when they get to 100 items, they bring it down the kindergarten hallway on the 100th day of school," said Villarreal.
Villarreal stated the drive started in 2020 and continued to grow because of the community and their donations.
"In 2020, we started with 800 items which we thought was amazing," said Villarreal. "In 2021, we reached about 2,000 items, it hasn't been that difficult because our community is really giving and our students are really giving."
And they do it all whilst teaching their students that it takes a village to help your community.