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McKinney high school students pack 750 Christmas meal bags in 22 minutes
Chris Beattie/Staff photo - Students from the three McKinney ISD high schools pack bags full of holiday meals Wednesday afternoon in McKinney North's cafeteria. Local churches will deliver the bags to area families in need.
By Chris Beattie, cbeattie@starlocalnews.com
McKinney high schools this week may have come as close as anyone to a Christmas miracle.
Student council (STUCO) members and their volunteer peers packed 750 family-sized holiday meals into deliver-ready bags - in 22 minutes. With a giving spirit and assembly-line strategy, students broke the tradition record by four minutes.
And they did so, once again, alongside their cross-town rivals.
Sorted atop North's cafeteria tables Wednesday were mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, stuffing and turkeys. STUCO members from North, McKinney Boyd and McKinney High manned the piles, ready to dispense them into passing brown paper bags.
Teachers and coaches helped amass the meal bags, each with enough to feed about 10 people, Blumenthal said. Partnering churches will distribute them to families in need around the area.
"We've always kind of operated on the principle that the people we're helping could be someone who goes to our school," said AJ Laudenslager, North student body president, who took part in the tradition for a fourth straight year.
North started the tradition 10 years ago, when STUCO members raised enough donations for just five bags. This year, the three schools gathered 7,500 pounds of turkeys and close to $12,000 worth of food.
North STUCO begins planning for the annual gathering each fall, and collect canned foods for the bags for several weeks. On Nov. 17, STUCO members stood at four McKinney grocery stores to acquire money and food donations.
Each of the three schools leads a major project each year, but relies on its rival, or in these cases, sister schools to better serve their community.
"It makes it so we're not all having separate events that are not helping as many people as we can," Laudenslager said. "It makes it such a bigger and more effective way to help."
And quicker. "In our freshman year, we stayed here until 7 p.m. doing this, so it took at least a few hours," said Rebekah Jacobsen, McKinney High spirit chair.
Casie Homer, North STUCO advisor, led Wednesday's 22-minute charge with ongoing direction. Students from different school organizations and sports teams careened around the cafeteria, filling bags and dragging them toward school doors. Covering the floors between school walls, the bags plugged the outer hallways, ready for pickup.
Same number of bags, less time spent packing - more giving spirit between the schools.
"Since we're pretty much doing the same thing every year, it's our challenge to be more organized, more on the ball, and have more people come and help," Laudenslager said. "Having this format just shows how many more people came compared to last year."
The tradition remains McKinney high schools' largest-scale collaboration each year. That they accomplish it together, and finish in minutes, is a different kind of Christmas wonder.
"We've perfected it over the years, so it's a well-oiled machine," Blumenthal said. "It's just all the schools trying to help each other help the community around the holidays. That's MacTown Miracles."
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