Connections Club ships truckload of aid to hurricane victims

HAZEL PARK — What started this year as a way for students at Hazel Park High School to improve their experience there has quickly turned into something more.

Members of the new Connections Club recently mobilized a truckload of aid for victims of hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Dennis Dixon, a teacher of history and civics at the high school, said that school administration came to him pitching the formation of the Connections Club. He supervises the student-led group with fellow history teacher Shawn Smith.

“They asked if we could create a club to find out what kids want to make their four years at the high school even better. We started having meetings an hour each day with students of all grades. We’ve been talking about possible weekly trips, and maybe even one big trip. We’ve been talking about ideas for new electives, like bringing back the debate club. We’ve been talking about ways to increase school spirit, like maybe a school store where people can buy merchandise,” Dixon said. “We put out schoolwide surveys, too, so it’s not just kids in the club sharing input. But there are all kinds in the club — kids in sports, drama, cheerleading, you name it. Also kids in no particular group. Just good kids, and all sorts, meeting each other, making friends, working together.”

But their goals quickly became something grander than the school itself.

“The kids in my civics class, we have weekly discussions about current events. We watch CNN and stuff like that. And they saw the hurricanes happening across the country and asked if we could do something,” Dixon said. “When they suggested collecting donations to send there, I said, ‘Absolutely!’ And it worked out perfectly, because a colleague of mine knows Rob Durham from the nonprofit Juggernaut’s Kids Foundation. He was already loading up U-Haul (trucks) to ship items to the hurricane victims in North Carolina and Florida.”

The call for donations was put out, and students, their families, school staff and others responded with countless goods, among them toiletry items, diapers, cleaning supplies, filtered water, shampoo, conditioner, soaps, razors, sheets, blankets, towels, laundry detergent, medicine and more.

While the individual items were small, there were so many that they quickly filled up a truck that arrived at the high school Oct. 16. Thus, within mere months of forming, the Connections Club had already impacted the lives of others — and Dixon said they have no plans to stop there.

Already, the club is planning two drives for the upcoming holidays. For the “Turkey Challenge,” members of the community are invited to visit any of the schools in the Hazel Park district and make a monetary donation at the front office. The money will be used to buy everything needed for complete Thanksgiving dinners, which will go to families in need as determined by counselors in the district.

Then, in the coming weeks, the Connections Club will be promoting a Christmas toy drive and winter clothing drive within the school, collecting items for distribution later in December. Dixon said that the current plan is to once again work with the Juggernaut’s Kids Foundation for this effort.

“The members of the club, they’re not only making connections within their school but also across the community,” Dixon said. “They’re finding ways to give back and help others. It’s about becoming good members of society, which is what we all want to see them be.”

Monica Rattee serves on the Hazel Park Public Schools Board of Education, both as a trustee and as its treasurer. Her daughter participates in the club. The family also has a personal connection to the hurricane relief project: Rattee’s sister lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. The sister brought her daughter and two dogs to Hazel Park to wait out the storm. During her stay, she even visited the Connections Club and spoke to the students, so that they could better appreciate the impact they were making.

“And this idea (to help victims of the hurricane) was truly brought forward by the kids. The fact that they saw others in need and wanted to step up is really heartwarming,” Rattee said. “These kids are 14 to 17 years old. They could have sat back at home, played on their phones, did other things. But they really got out there in the community, five to seven days a week, putting in hours of hard work asking people for donations, sometimes getting told ‘no’ but sucking it up and trying again at other places. Again, it was just amazing to see.”

She also marveled at the diversity of students within the group.

“Sometimes, you start a club and it’s all boys or all girls, or all one interest or all another,” Rattee said. “But this Connections Club, well, it’s just the perfect mix of all of them. They’re truly just a great group of kids.”