CRESTVIEW — With a whine of jig saws, the scratch of sandpaper, and the slurp of paint brushes, Shoal River Middle School and Antioch Elementary School students are not just learning creative skills. They’re also helping Children in Crisis.
Crafting and selling decorated wooden Christmas stockings — to benefit the nonprofit that serves abused and neglected Okaloosa and Walton County children — also teaches fifth-, sixth- and seventh-graders collaborative skills.
“It’s fun making them,” Donovan Kennedy, a seventh-grade Shoal River industrial arts student said after finishing a stocking cutout. “I’m glad that it might help other kids.”
After sixth-grader Silas Vaughn sanded the stocking’s edges, he passed the finished blank form to Devon Estep, who stacked it with other completed pieces. “It’s fun to learn new things,” Devon said. “I’ve never done this before. I want to do it some more.”
Teacher Dale Chavers’ industrial arts students completed the last of more than 100 wooden stocking cutouts Oct. 6. The pile of trimmed and sanded forms then went over to Antioch, where Alice Thomas’s fifth-grade art students will decorate them.
The school’s Children in Crisis student committee will sell the stockings to classmates and faculty for $5, Thomas said. The students also will personalize decorated stockings.
“Orders will begin on Nov. 2 and the stockings will be hung in the hallway with care during our Thanksgiving break,” Thomas said. “Prior to Christmas, they will be sent home with the children.”
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Shoal River, Antioch students collaborate on charitable Christmas decorations (PHOTOS, VIDEO)