Community service is a valuable life experience for students alike to experience. This past January, students participated in a mitten drive, delivering hand-sewn mittens to Mittens for Detroit. Mittens for Detroit is a nonprofit dedicated to providing mittens to children, teens, and adults during the cold winters in the metro-Detroit area.   

Mittens for Detroit have collected over 330,000 pairs of mittens since they started in 2010. They have donations and volunteers from over the county. The city of Detroit has a high poverty demographic. Some families in Detroit are low-income, lacking basic necessities like water, heat, and power. Charities like this are significant because they help give protection to those less fortunate. The Homelessness Action Network of Detroit found that there was a 9% increase in homeless people from 2021 to 2022 with over 6,000 reported homeless people in Detroit. The number had decreased every year from 2019-2021 before the 9% rise in 2022. 

On January 9th, a handful of students participated in a field trip to Mittens for Detroit and sorted out hand-sewn mittens made in Mrs. Yokhana’s design for living classes. The following students participated:

Yasmin Bowren

Adaya Word 

Arianna Wallace

 Izzy Bush

 Malia Sanchez

 Jewel Zschernig

 Aria Middleton

 Lexi Lauinger

 Elyssa Dikin

 Sarah Constante

 Zoe Ciaramitaro

 Carolanne Hammer 

Senior, Jewel Zschernig, described the process the students did to help and reflected on her service to Mittens for Detroit. 

“We sorted the mittens everyone in all the classes made by adult, kid and little and also by gender we kept track of how many we had using a tally chart. Then we put them into boxes, got assigned a school and put the correct amount of mittens the school asked for along with some hats for each kid in the box then we packed them up,” Zshernig said. “It felt good to do something for the community alongside my peers. I never realized how important a simple pair of mittens could be for a kid in Detroit and how much school they could miss just because they didn’t have mittens.”

Senior, Carolanne Hammer, shares a similar reflection of the experience.

“Doing Mittens for Detroit was a great opportunity to help serve my community and better understand what was going on around me. I loved going downtown and being able to help with the organization after making mittens for them. It was such an amazing experience to learn about all the kids who received these mittens and how much of an impact I can make through a skill that I have,” Hammer said.

All in all, community service is an important aspect to keep people humanized and empathetic. The world is full of danger and hurt, but small things like sending mittens to those in need, can make the world a little brighter. The students who participated have helped hundreds, and hopefully this event was a catalyst for them to continue helping others throughout their life. 

Sources:

https://www.handetroit.org/news/2024/7/24/2022-state-of-homelessness-data-brief-for-the-detroit-coc