McNicholas High School students took the theme of Catholic Schools Week: Catholic Schools United in Faith and Community and used it to lead the annual Day of Service.
The Day of Service is a tech-free day where students are able to contribute to the greater good of the community through donating blood, providing sandwiches, raising money, and even making treats for shelter animals.
Students bring in supplies to help add to the donations. Bringing in items like jars of peanut butter, jars of jelly, old t-shirts, toilet paper rolls, and change help to increase the amount that McNicholas High School students can give back to the community. “I was able to bring in some materials to help make peanut butter sandwiches,” said sophomore Maryn Minnich.
Each department is in charge of a separate service project. The science department planned to work in the school garden; however, due to the poor weather conditions they created around 50 bee bowls, and junior Aydan Williams helped Chemistry Teacher, Mrs. Chrystel Wells construct bat houses and a blue bird house to place around campus to create a new home for the wildlife friends on campus. Other courses strung berries and popcorn to accompany the bird houses on campus.
Students in English classes created dog treats out of recycled toilet paper rolls they decorated with non-toxic markers. Around 350 dog and cat treats were made. Letters written to senior living facility residents were also written by the English Department and World Language classes with around 300 letters written, and in many other electives students made friendship bracelets and suncatchers for Children’s Hospital. Some World Languages classes also crafted paper flowers for residents at the Ashton Senior Living Facility.
The math department had students use old t-shirts to create around 250 recycled tote bags for clients shopping at St. Vincent DePaul. Engineering students in Mr. Steve Dalton’s Intro to Engineering course continued to work on creating a chair lift for a 2-year-old. This has been a continuous project throughout the quarter but students continued to work on it in class during the Day of Service.
“I liked making bags out of t-shirts in my math class and counting the pennies, that was really fun,” Minnich said.
SAIL (Support and Accommodations for Identified Learners) students created fleece blankets for those living under the care of Hospice of Southwest Ohio, resulting in 47 blankets.
Theology courses counted change for the change drive. Students brought in bags of change to be counted and donated to Catholics United for Faith and McNicholas High School was able to raise and donate over $1,400.
The Social Studies Department did two separate projects – one for students with a peanut allergy, and one for other students. Students who do not have a nut allergy assembled peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to donate to four different food pantries including: SEM, Catholic Worker House, and a couple of local food pantries throughout the Anderson and Mt. Washington Area. The other project was available in social studies teacher Mr. Mark Brugger’s classroom where students were able to write letters for veterans. When all departments ran out of supplies – the classrooms were cleaned, and all social studies courses wrote letters to veterans. Students made 250 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and wrote 175 letters.
Social Studies Department Chair Mr. Pat Stricker said, “We boxed them up [sandwiches] as a whole and collected them throughout the day… Mrs. Sandmann provides a starter kit for us, but students are asked to bring in other supplies as well. Last year we ran a little short [on sandwiches], but we did much better this year,” continued Stricker. “It’s a great day to provide service to anyone who is less fortunate than we are; we are pretty lucky”
In addition to the service in the classroom, the annual blood drive was held throughout the day on Friday, January 31, 2025. Sixty-seven students donated forty-seven units of blood, and according to Hoxworth Blood Center, this amount of blood work will save one hundred and forty-one lives.
Theology teacher and a member of Mission and Ministry team, Mrs. Mary-Beth Sandmann stated, “My hope was that students had a chance to just have a day of giving to our neighbors and [the day] is tech free so they could kind of work with each other. It’s just a different way of being a catholic community,” Sandmann continued, “I’d like to see this continue into the future and to further emphasize this is who we are its kind of ingrained in our heritage and what we’re about at McNick — that we love God by loving our neighbors.”
The McNicholas Milestone 