Appreciation & Sharing

Last Friday we had to move our Student Appreciation Day indoors because of the rainy weather we experienced. I believe that was the only time we have had to do that. However, Mrs. Wilhelm and her entire crew managed to pull off a great day for all the students. There were plenty of corn hole games going on in the hallway, dancing in the cup and saucer and the National Guard set up the obstacle course in the commons. We had movies going on in the community room and plenty of popcorn and pop in the commons. The car show obviously couldn't be moved in the building (although I did have someone ask me if they could pull their race car into the commons - and he was serious) but overall it was a great day for everyone. Once again, thanks to Mrs. Wilhelm, Mrs. Keith, Mr. Unverferth, Mrs. Klinger and all the student ambassadors for doing a terrific job under those conditions.

Combined with our student appreciation day was also the start of our food drive for the United Way in Van Wert county. The Lee Kinstle car dealership was kind enough to lend us a couple trucks that we could use to load up all the canned goods that were collected from our staff and students. We always have a little friendly competition between the various labs to see who can collect the most cans of food. Each staff member is also assigned to a particular lab. This years lab winner was the Industrial Mechanics group. They collected the most cans of food overall. The lab with the most cans collected based on an average number of cans per student, was the building and grounds program. Both labs will receive a pizza party for their efforts. The overall winner was really the families in our community who will benefit from this outreach. Vantage collected over 3,020 cans of food!!!

The food drive will continue this week but the focus will be on collecting cash so that the Medical Office group can go shopping for all the other needed items. We will have cans set up on the stage during lunch time with each can representing a lab. Students and staff can throw their loose change in the cans and the lab with the most money will receive doughnuts for their class. We will also have a $1 jeans day and $1 t-shirt day on Wednesday. If you wish to wear jeans and a t-shirt, the medical office group will be by in the morning to collect the $2. This is such a great way to help out the United Way of Van Wert and all their causes. You never know, you may be helping out a classmate that you have no idea needs help, or you may need the United Ways help someday too. Thanks for all you do here at Vantage and let us keep up the good work this week. A special thank you to Mrs. VanTilburg and the Medical Office lab for all the hard work they put into this project to make this drive so successful.