Laguna High School’s principal and office manager, donning holiday string light necklaces, headbands topped with festive trees and masks, spent the afternoon of Dec. 10 handing out large red stockings peppered in gold stars to students and families at a table in front of the parking lot on Taft Street.
Nestled inside the stockings are stuffers like candy, socks, gloves, lip balm and a $50 gift card for every student, said Principal Allie Greene. The drive-thru gift-giving is the start of a new tradition now that Laguna’s customary holiday dinner to celebrate kids became yet another bright spot in the year snuffed out by the pandemic.
“And our goal was to serve about 10 kids. We started coming up with names of 10 kids who could really use a brighter holiday, and then we just started collecting donations,” Greene said. She said the school received nearly $5,000 from various donors for their “Adopt a Rhino” program, enough to assemble a stocking for each of its approximately 90 students attending Laguna, a continuation high school and home of the Rhinos.
“And we intentionally tried to get gift cards that were for places that they could buy groceries if they wanted to or they could buy something for themselves,” Greene said. Most of the stockings contain Target gift cards, with some for Safeway.
She said, “We also got gift cards from Hippizzaz (Pizza) and the Sebastopol Cookie Company because we wanted to make sure we were supporting local companies, and the local companies have been very supportive of us.”
According to Greene, Laguna High serves the highest percentage of low-income families in the entire western Sonoma County district. The school sent a flyer informing its local partners and former staff and principals still involved in the community that Laguna High students are predominantly low-income and they’re struggling, Greene said.
“You know, distance-learning hasn’t been easy on anybody and we all know that it disproportionately impacts low-income families and low-income kids,” Greene said. “And besides that, it was right around Thanksgiving and none of us were able to see our extended family and our kids couldn’t see their extended family, so we really wanted to do something to sort of brighten the holidays for our kids.”
The Rotary Club of Sebastopol and the Sebastopol Kiwanis Club were some of the most generous donors, but word traveled fast over the program announcement on Facebook and at school board meetings, Greene said.
Some donors reached out about any families in particular need. Greene said Jeanne Fernandes, board president of the West Sonoma County Union High School District, furnished the bare apartment of a Laguna family that had just moved closer to the school, where the student previously slept on the floor. She said the student now has a desk and a bed.
Another community member sponsored four kids, giving them more traditional holiday presents.
“I think the blessing and the curse of distance learning is we all see each other’s houses, so for the school board president, she had actually asked, ‘Is there anybody who in particular needs something?’ So, we kind of talked as Laguna staff about which kid probably needs something extra,” the principal said.
Greene said seeing the kids in person gives the administration an opening to check in about their grades as they approach graduation in a small community where the school staff employees know every student, who’s struggling and who needs to kick into gear to secure the credits to graduate. It could “change the trajectory of their lives” given the lifelong positive impact graduation can have, she said.
“And because we’re a continuation high school, every single kid who is here, at some point, was at risk of not graduating,” Greene said. “It gives us a chance to interact directly with the kid and with the family and say, like, ‘Hey you’re super close, you just have a little bit more to go. What can we do to get you across that finish line?’”
Connecting in-person to present them stockings and talk about their progress goes over more smoothly than when school administrators make a phone call, she said. “So, this kind of gives us an opportunity when everyone’s really happy for us to say, ‘Hey, we believe in you, we love you, we want you to graduate.’
Greene said that they’ll probably set up more distribution times in the upcoming week for high schoolers who haven’t picked up their goods yet.
Katie Underwood picked up a red stocking for her daughter attending Laguna High and chatted with the principal and the office manager, Kimberly Nyberg. She said she couldn’t wait for the students to return to the classroom.
“It’s not at fault of the kids and staff, it’s just everything else that comes with the pandemic with the kids being basically locked up at home and not being able to physically socialize with their friends. It wears more on their mental health,” she said.
Underwood said, as a single parent, she deeply appreciated the school’s gift.
“You know, we do everything we can to make ends meet, but it’s nice to be able to have a little help every now and then. This is a really cool thing that they were able to do, and for the community to come together and do this for an entire school during this kind of situation is pretty epic,” she said.
Edwin, a senior at Laguna High, stopped by Thursday afternoon. He’s not enjoying distance learning this year either. “It’s been pretty tough because I was trying to go into my senior year motivated and just being home, there’s a lot of distractions and for me, it’s pretty hard.”
Edwin said he’s trying his best to get into class and earn credits, clearing as much schoolwork as he can because his job takes up a lot of his time. He said he plans to give the stocking to his grandmother.
