MHS Beta Club gives back

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School is currently out for summer, and Manning High School’s Beta Club students have gone home with feel-good memories of helping homeless teens in their community.

Manning High School’s Beta Club began the Teens for Jeans initiative two years ago. French teacher and National Beta Club sponsor Ancuta Hozan said that she was proud of the girls’ achievements for both years.

“The National Beta Club is a community based program, so the members and I thought it would be a good idea to get involved with the Teens for Jeans initiative,” she said. “There are so many homeless teens across the United States, so that was another reason to start the program. The first year we collected more jeans than we bargained for.”

“When we wrapped up the program this year, we noticed that we had collected even more jeans than the previous year,” she added. “The Beta Club members made a request to keep our service within the Clarendon County community, so we donated this year’s jeans to The Friendship House in Manning.”

Hozan said that the school’s National Beta Club made a donation of more than 500 jeans to the Friendship House of Manning this year. Having formed a partnership with a local Baptist church, The Friendship House created a store where the teens were able to shop around for donated jeans.

The National Beta Club’s Teens for Jeans endeavors began in February and ended mid-April. The club began to collect gently used jeans within the school and, according to Hozan, they found that people from within the community had heard about the campaign and started donating gently used jeans as well as new name-brand jeans.

“We ended up collecting more than 500 pairs of jeans,” Hozan said. “Everybody in the school helped, even the teachers. Students who donated were told to bring their donation to their first block teachers and each Friday, the Beta Club members went through the school to collect the jeans.

Hozan said that, starting outside the cafeteria, Beta Club members created a wall of jeans that decorated the main hallway.

“We did this to encourage other students to donate and to show them the progress we were making,” she said

Members of the club created flyers, posters and decorated donation boxes for the jeans. They also created a link on the club’s Facebook page where people could donate.

“The students became so involved with the program both years, and the initiative has been such a success, that we have decided to make Teens for Jeans a tradition at Manning High School,” said Hozan. “When we first started the program, started slowly until we figured out how to get the word out.”

“This year, however, people showed interest right from the start; they were looking forward to it,” Hozan added. “We had no problem getting the word out and we collected even more items than the previous year. I believe that next year, we will do even better, so we are all looking forward to it. People this year were even bringing in brand new name-brand jeans.”

“Jeans are the perfect items to donate because they can be worn after multiple washings,” Hozan said. “They can be dressed up or down, worn throughout all seasons, and it’s an item that all teens are fond of. We all look forward to another successful year in 2018.”