Schools Activities Under Way to Help Less Fortunate

Students, faculty and staff at the Los Fresnos CISD are helping to make the upcoming holiday season a little brighter for those in need.
Schools have planned activities to collect food, clothing, or toys for needy families in the Los Fresnos community.

Los Fresnos United
Student organizations have begun a Canned Food Drive which will benefit identified families in need of students at the school. The cans will be collected until Dec. 18, at which point they will be delivered to the families.

Liberty Memorial Middle School
Students, faculty and staff are bringing new, unwrapped toys to foster children in the Cameron County Child Welfare Board and Blue Sunday campaign. The toys will be presented at a Christmas party for the foster children. Student organizations are also busy baking cupcakes for the occasion, and made more than 1,500 cupcakes in 2013.

Los Cuates Middle School
The Christmas Angel campaign benefits students from needy families at the school. Teachers at the school are asked to bring clothes, toys, and food for students whose names are kept anonymous.

Resaca Middle School
Student organizations have begun a Canned Food Drive, which is expected to bring in thousands of cans of food. The Los Fresnos Lions Club will deliver the food to needy families in the community. Student organizations are also making cupcakes for the Cameron County Child Welfare Board campaign. More than 2,000 cupcakes were donated last year.

Las Yescas Elementary
Students, faculty and staff are donating toys to the Port Isabel Dentention Center Toy Drive.

Laureles Elementary
Students have been participating in the St. Jude’s Research Hospital Math-A-Thon, which has benefitted children at the hospital for more than 35 years. Students ask family and friends for pledges to solve math problems.

Lopez-Riggins Elementary
The Secret Angel campaign benefits students from needy families at the school. Students at the school are asked to bring clothes, toys, and food for their fellow classmates whose names are kept anonymous.

Los Fresnos Elementary
Students are making toy donations to Team Gabby, an organization which provides toys for children in hospitals. The unwrapped toys will benefit children in the following area hospitals: Driscoll Children’s Specialty Clinic, Vannie E. Cook Children’s Cancer Center, Ronald McDonald House Charities, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Edinburg Children’s Hospital, and Doctor’s Hospital at Renaissance.

Olmito Elementary
The school is participating in the Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots campaign. Students, teachers and staff are collecting new, unwrapped toys for distribution to needy children in the area.

Palmer-Laakso Elementary
In the Secret Angel campaign, staff members sponsor children and provide gifts of clothes, toys, and food for their families. Names of students are kept anonymous. The school also sponsors 10 Christmas trees for needy families who otherwise would not have a tree.

Rancho Verde Elementary
In the White Angel campaign. staff members sponsor families of needy children and provide gifts of clothes, food and other essentials for them. The items collected are distributed before the holiday break.

District Administration
The Advanced Academics Office coordinates the 18th Annual Families in Need program, which benefits families that have been identified by counselors throughout the district. Members and parishioners of the Los Fresnos Lions Club, Los Fresnos Church of Christ and Los Fresnos Methodist Church have also assisted in the campaign. Baskets of clothing, toys, and food are presented to the identified families before Christmas.