The Mount Greylock Student Council, led by juniors Charlotte Holubar and Knowl Stroud, organized a tissue drive for eighth through twelfth graders in late November. Students were encouraged to contribute boxes of tissues to their respective directed studies, and the classes that received at least fifteen tissue boxes earned a snack pass, allowing students to obtain a free snack from the cafeteria.
During the fall and winter months, sickness runs rampant through the halls of Mount Greylock. English teacher Rebecca Tucker-Smith mentioned the need for tissues, especially during this time, to Holubar and Stroud, which gave them their idea for the tissue drive. Tissues are not a part of the school’s budget, so if a teacher wants tissues for their classroom, those funds must come out of their own pockets.
In order to collect a substantial amount of tissues, Holubar and Stroud knew they had to incorporate some incentive. Holubar said, “It was a pretty easy solution, with simple incentives running the tissue drive.” Seventh graders were not included in the drive because they had already been asked to contribute tissues earlier in the year, and Holubar and Stroud felt that it would be unfair to ask for more.
The directed study classes that brought in enough tissues to win snack passes were those of Physical Education teacher Brian Gill, Spanish teacher Shannon Vigent, Spanish teacher Joseph Johnson and Physics teacher Daniel Louis.
When asked if they would attempt to do another drive in the future, Stroud said, “We don’t have any concrete plans to do another one in the future [but] teachers are always open.” Stroud emphasized that, even without an incentive, it is always important to contribute to the community.
Senior Caleb Low said the student council is “happy with our relationship with Dr. McCandless and are in dialogue pretty often with him about budgeting and other important issues to us as a council,” including making sure teachers have classroom necessities. That being said, the council may hold another tissue drive if people do not continue to contribute tissues without being prompted to.
