Octagon Club’s annual coat drive is in progress
With the weather dropping into below-freezing temperatures, people wearing coats are becoming more pervasive to the casual observer.
But some people aren’t fortunate enough to own — let alone buy — one. That’s where the students in Wapakoneta High School’s Octagon
Club - a world-wide organization of young people serving their local communities - come in.
The drive started Nov. 1 and will end Nov. 30. Despite what was considered a low turnout, last year’s drive brought in 150 coats.
Every coat collected - men’s, women’s and children’s - will be donated to Mercy Unlimited and then donated to families in need of them.
And it’s not just the coat drive where the club helps people.
During their Nov. 5 meeting, the club donated a $1,500 check to the Cancer Association of Auglaize County. Money raised will go towards helping families with transportation needs.
“We raised the money by doing pink-out shirts because we have a big pink-out football game every single year,” club member Reyna Woodruff said.
She joined the club to get involved within the community.
“I want to make a difference in the world, so being a part of Octagon Club has been a way to be able to do that at the community level and
[teaches] me how to do that and how to interact with people,”” she said.
Charbi Patel, another officer in the club, joined after moving to the district in eighth-grade.
She described serving as a way to change oneself.
Makahla Schnarre, a senior at the school, joined in 10th-grade and saw the organization as a way to get involved with the community and not just the school.
“Even just very small acts of kindness and service really make a big difference,” she said. “Selling a few tshirts we were able to raise $1,500, and that’s going to help so many patients for a month to get to where they need to go to get treatment.”
“[The money] is a sizable donation, and the entire community comes together to help raise that money,” Jackie Martell, an advisor for the club, said.
Laura Mears, the other advisor to Octagon and a counselor at the school,
saw joining as an opportunity to get involved with smaller groups of students.
She saw the club as a way for students to develop their service skills and gets them to understand the idea of inequality.
To donate stop by Casa Chic, Walmart, Auglaize Embroidery, Community Markets, the YMCA or either the high school or middle school where bins will be and leave them there.
The Octagon Club is sponsored by the Breakfast Optimist Club and has
existed for over 30 years. Besides the coat drive, the club has already held a cancer fundraiser, does trash cleanup, goes to the Gardens at Wapakoneta monthly, decorates the halls and provides coffee and breakfast to teachers during teacher appreciation week, helps out Breakfast Optimist Club with their roast beef dinners
and volunteers as student leaders during eighth-grade orientation for
seventh-graders.