“The kids have been amazing,” said veteran English teacher Carolyn Brown.  “One little comment has led to a dozen Give-a-Gift donations from my classes.”

With convocation schedule on Friday, Mrs. Brown did announcements with her sixth-hour freshmen rather than her usual first-hour class.

“Hey,” she said, “there are 26 of you in here.  If everyone chipped in a dollar, we could do one of the gifts for the Give-a-Gift tree.”

The freshmen immediately brought out dollar bills and coins and collected $28, selected a name from the tree, had Olivia Lin volunteer to shop and “started the whole cascade of giving,” said Mrs. Brown.

Next hour, another section of freshmen, got the story of what had happened from Mrs. Brown.  Their response?

“We can outdo that,” said Ryan Darling, and the seventh-hour students kept doling out money until they had $78 collected.  Litzy Parish volunteered to do their shopping for three different children.

And the story continued. . . Fifth-hour seniors collected money for three more gifts, fourth-hour juniors did four gift tickets to beat the seniors and the original class added one more gift when they found out what everyone else had contributed.

Senior shopper was Hannah Vanden Heuvel; junior shopper, Cassidy Noble.

In total, a dozen Give-a-Gifts were filled, prompting a Thought-for-the-Day on Mrs. Brown’s board:  “Giving is contagious.”