A string of hurricanes, Harvey, Irma and Maria, have recently had a severely adverse impact on many citizens of the United States.

While the community of Libertyville was not directly impacted by these hurricanes, different factions of LHS have decided to support those who were affected.

The girls’ volleyball team is one group who chose to support these efforts. The team had home matches against Hersey and St. Viator on Aug. 30 and 31 and decided to partner with these schools to fundraise for the Red Cross’ efforts in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. Ultimately, the team raised $2,000 for this cause.

“We are always trying to use our sports platform to do more good in the community and in the world,” said varsity head coach Greg Loika.

Another effort to raise money for hurricane relief was led by English teacher Dyan Naslund. Ms. Naslund sold gumballs outside her classroom during the month of September. She said she made about $75 dollars from the gumball machine and plans to either match the donations or add her own contribution to these funds. She plans to give this money to the Red Cross to disperse as needed.

Ms. Naslund does fundraisers through her gumball machine about half of the school year. She decided to fundraise for this cause because she thought “it was a timely issue.”

Not only is it a timely issue, but for some, like Latin teacher Jamie Reuben, a Houston native, it is a personal one. Ms. Reuben’s parents “were victims of Hurricane Harvey. [She] went down there and witnessed everything first hand so [she] has more of a personal connection and interest in this.”

She shared that one part of her fundraising efforts were for her parents specifically, but she is also doing fundraising efforts through her Latin classes and Latin Club to help the situation as a whole in Houston.

According to Ms. Reuben, her classes and club are planning on doing bake sales as well as a movie night in the Studio Theatre to raise money for Hurricane Harvey. Her classes are currently debating which organization to donate their funds to.

She has also seen benefits manifest themselves in her students from thinking about what needs to be done to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey.

“I think that one of the awesome things about doing this is that it allows people to sort of expand themselves and become more sympathetic, more empathetic individuals and those are the kind of people that we want at LHS, to send out into the world once they graduate,” she said. “The kind of people that can appreciate what kind of struggles others are going through and feel an emotional desire to help and be humanitarian in that way.”