Last Friday, February 21st, was our final day of the Gladbrook Reinbeck School District and Community Teens for Jeans drive. For the past three weeks, community members, staff and students of all GR buildings have been donating their old, gently used jeans. These jeans will be distributed to children and teens throughout over 1,000 shelters across the nation. With our donations, the Teens for Jeans organization reached their 2014 goal of 1 million pairs of jeans!

Within the high school, we had a competition among the staff and grades to see who could donate the most pairs of jeans. The seniors won with a whopping 70 pairs! They will be receiving a pizza party on Friday the 28th to celebrate their accomplishment! Here were our final standings amongst the district and community: 9th grade: 24 pairs; 10th grade: 30 pairs; High School Staff: 35 pairs; Collected from Community: 35 pairs; 11th grade: 50 pairs; Gladbrook Campus: 58 pairs; 12th grade: 70 pairs; Reinbeck Elementary: 90 pairs.

Our goal was 250 pairs of jeans and we collected (drum roll please!) 392 pairs of jeans! How amazing is that?! And it gets even better for our students because this means Mr. Boheman will be receiving a pie in the face! All the high school students who donated were also entered into the running for a $4,000 scholarship, and if our school collects the most pairs of jeans nationwide, we’ll win a $10,000 grant (runner-up gets a $5,000 grant)!

So many great things came out of this Teens for Jeans drive, and I hope you took the opportunity to participate in such a great cause! We all can be extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished! Once again, if you’re interested in learning more about Teens for Jeans, feel free to check out their website: www.dosomething.org/teensforjeans