Hockinson Middle School students host first Community Service Day

Brush Prairie — Hockinson Middle School students hosted their first-ever Community Service Day in December, with students collecting food, blankets and chew toys. Joe Loper’s home base students bagged and boxed donations to the school’s annual food drive, in which the school broke its previous record and collected more than 5,100 cans, boxes of cereal and bags of pasta and beans to bring to Fire District 3’s Station 31. Seventh- and eighth-graders worked with sixth-graders to turn fleecy fabrics into 37 blankets, which were donated to Vancouver’s Winter Hospitality Overflow shelter. Other classes started their day creating care packages and writing cards that will be delivered to students affected by the Camp Fire in California and organized holiday gifts for people in need in Hockinson and at Vancouver’s Share House. Others turned rags and other materials into chew toys for pets in shelters.