AMANDA MILLER, left, and Alli Morris, both seniors at Wahtonka Community School, partnered on a project to provide 40 gift bags with practical items to area homeless. Contributed photo
AMANDA MILLER, left, and Alli Morris, both seniors at Wahtonka Community School, partnered on a project to provide 40 gift bags with practical items to area homeless. Contributed photo
Wahtonka Community School senior Alli Morris saw a post on Facebook where someone thought it would be cool to make gift bags for the homeless, and the idea for a school project was born.
Morris and fellow Wahtonka senior Amanda Miller recently distributed 40 gift bags to the homeless at the Community Meal site in downtown The Dalles.
“We put everyday things like Tylenol, toilet paper, food containers so they can store food, water bottles, cups, socks,” Morris said of the practical list of items contained in the gift bag.
She and several other students at the school did a fundraising car wash in September to raise money for the project, and also asked for donations from businesses.
In all, she had a $480 budget to work with.
Her initial plans were to make 50 gift bags, but officials who work with the homeless said that would be too many, especially since she was going to be distributing them on a weekday. So she settled on 40, and also realized she would be able to put more items in each bag that way.
Distribution day came, and Morris, who had grown up being cautioned to avoid the homeless, she said, found herself pleasantly surprised.
“They have a lot more in their personality than you think they do,” she said. “They’re a lot nicer than you think.”
Miller said, “This project inspired me to help more with the community, and the homeless because it makes me smile to see how appreciative and happy they are.”
Morris said the project was “definitely” her favorite. What made it so was “just kind of seeing how happy it makes them. Everybody was
saying God bless you, like, all the time, ‘Thank you.’
“This one lady walked around with us and told everybody what we were doing.”
When Morris and Miller realized some of the gift bag recipients also had dogs, they went and fetched some dog treats and gave them to the dogs.
At the 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. meal time, “We sat there and talked to the people and listened to some of their stories.”
One that stuck with her in particular was a man who once lived in Condon until his wife “threw him out” on Christmas Eve “and he ended up like this a couple years later.”
There were a few gift bags left over and the students gave them to a staffer at The Dalles High School to distribute as she saw fit.
The Wahtonka Community School is a year-round, project-based program aimed at re-enrolling students who had dropped out of school. It has just 55 slots and a long waiting list.
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