News Photo by Julie Goldberg From left to right, Alpena High School students Damon Adams, Blake Macdonald, Mya Bellanger, Anna Woods, and MaKaela Muritok stand with the gift baskets the school’s leadership class made for local families.

ALPENA — Every year, the Alpena High School leadership class helps those who need it the most during the holiday season.

The class has worked since early November on making gift baskets for local families. The gift baskets — which will be delivered to families on Wednesday — are filled with food, such as potatoes, bread, and cookies.

The gift baskets start by staff members submitting names of local families who need help during the holiday season. After getting names and figuring out how many baskets have to be made, the students start collecting food, junior Damon Adams said.

But the number of families who need help grows. So, the number of gift baskets grows.

“It’s constantly changing, and we just have to adapt to do it, and that’s part of the job, part of the mission is we just have to adapt to our community and make sure all their needs are fulfilled before our own,” Adams said.

The class has spent the past few weeks putting together the baskets. Individual grades were asked to collect food and the rest of the food came from the class’s budget.

“I think it really shows the Christmas spirit of just giving,” junior Blake Macdonald said. “It makes you feel real good.”

In years past, the students haven’t received much feedback from people, Adams said, but some people are thankful for their generosity.

“The fact that they have somebody in the community or a group of people in the community that can go out and they can step up and they can do that for them, they’re just so eternally grateful,” Adams said. “That’s just really makes us want to keep doing this.”

The class is delivering 48 baskets on Wednesday.

“Our mission is to help people,” Adams said. “We just want to help our community and help less fortunate individuals.”

The leadership class also had a giving tree in the school throughout the month. Sophomore Belle Wherry said ornaments were put on a tree with a wish list for students who are less fortunate and may not get to celebrate Christmas at their home

“We get a list of those kids and send out a request to the office and people can come and pick out ornaments off of the tree,” Wherry said.

Anyone, staff or students, could grab an ornament and buy the wish-list items.

Wherry said the giving tree brings the school together.

“It’s a good opportunity and it really opens your eyes so you can see more of the environment of the school, like just things you didn’t know before,” she said.

The school counselors will give students the items before winter break starts.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.