When Lauren Turnbull took over the job of Highlandette director this summer, she welcomed the chance to implement some new ideas of her own. This week, one of her ideas came to fruition, as the girls completed a service project to give back to the community.
Each Highlandette rank was empowered to develop their own project, so senior lieutenant Megan Williams and her rank (those are the girls who sit behind her in the stands at football games) held a “Diaper Drive” for families staying at Genesis Women’s Shelter. Megan has worked with the folks at Genesis before, serving as an officer in a student group called Genesis S.T.A.R. – Students Tackling Abusive Relationships.
When Megan called the shelter to look into providing for a family via their Christmas Adopt-A-Family program, Genesis welcomed the help, but when they described their urgent need for basic supplies for children living at the shelter, Megan’s plan changed direction. Instead, the girls held a Diaper Drive. When she discussed her plan with her mom, the preschool teacher thought it was a great idea. In fact, she invited her students at Christian Childhood Development Center (CCDC at LHUMC) to participate. The children did chores at home to earn money, collecting a total of $104, then one of their dads gave a gift to match that. Including all the diapers collected by the Highlandettes, 2517 diapers were delivered to Genesis.
“It was cool to see people really getting into it,” Megan told me. “And the best part was taking the diapers to Genesis. They didn’t expect us to have as many as we did – we had to ask for a bigger dolly to get all the diaper boxes up the elevator. The people at Genesis were so thankful and appreciative. I learned that something so simple can make a really big difference.”
Shown here are Megan’s Highlandette rank: Hannah Kurtz, Hannah Pittman, Sarah Graham, Jordan Iliya, Megan Williams, Katie Campbell, Kirsten Denton and Hayley Courtney.
