With the end of Thanksgiving break comes the end of CdM leadership club AYS’s Giving Thanks Week. Giving Thanks Week is an annual spirit week put on by the club that promotes being thankful through things like posters, Instagram posts, and Trident TV videos.

They started the week off by decorating the campus with posters reminding students to be grateful and asking them to reflect on what they are thankful for. The posters were all Thanksgiving-themed and overall a great way for CdM students to get excited for the holiday that week. After creating posters, AYS filmed a promotional video to put on Trident TV so they could reach more students. The video featured smiling AYS members letting students know it was Giving Thanks Week and ways they could show how thankful they are. Their short video played on Trident TV the two days before the break started in order to leave the students with ways to be thankful as they approached Thanksgiving. On top of the posters and video, AYS President Lexie Howell had “. . .each member of AYS write letters of gratitude to a few different teachers.” These letters were short anonymous cards to teachers telling them how appreciated they are. AYS tried to write cards to every teacher to make them all have something to smile about over the break. The letters were dropped off at classrooms and in teacher mailboxes.

For Giving Thanks Week, a few members of AYS even went to volunteer at Lighthouse Community Center to provide food for the homeless. AYS member Luke Lanni had been in charge of planning this event and after a few bumps announced to the club “Lighthouse Tuesday. I pulled through.” They met on the Tuesday of that week at 2:00 pm and helped distribute food to those in need. It was a great way to give back to the community and ensure people had meals over the holiday. AYS’s Giving Thanks Week was a success this year and hopefully had people thinking about how they could be thankful even as they were at home with their families.