The Lake Tahoe School Community Service Program aims to: instill in each student the virtue of service to others and a habit of self-reflection, and increase student knowledge of the broad and diverse needs of the community. Students also develop real-world skills such as leadership, collaboration with others, problem-solving, and communication, while experiencing firsthand the virtues and rewards of serving others.

The article below was written by LTS 7th grader, Evee, in her journalism elective class.

Christmas Community Service – LTS and F.I.S.H.
By Evee P., LTS 7th grader

Volunteering to help people in need doesn’t have to be as complicated as it seems, doing it cost nothing and trust me, you will feel good afterward. On December 18th, the Lake Tahoe School middle school went to Friends In Service Helping, better known as F.I.S.H. The organization is known for helping those in need find food, shelter, medicine, and other necessities. They have several locations in northern Nevada. LTS went to their Carson City food bank to sort thousands of pounds of donated food for distribution for the holidays.

“When I am sorting food at F.I.S.H I feel like I am doing something to help people that need it. I am so happy that we get this experience every year. I love seeing everybody smiling and laughing during the day, I think we all learn so much during the course of the day. We learn how to work together and we get to help people along the way. At the end of the day I feel complete and satisfied that I helped people in need” said Katie Belle, a seventh-grade student at LTS. For the past two years, the LTS middle school has gone down to one of two F.I.S.H facilities to do volunteer work. One year we freshened up one of their service buildings and this year we went to the Administration and Client Services in Carson City to sort food. The building serves as a client services office, dining hall, food bank, and a medical clinic. LTS hopes to continue working with F.I.S.H in the future.

At F.I.S.H. every student had a purpose, and the jobs were split into two major sections. Those who were sorting from large intake bins and those who were sorting the foods from the large bins into specific crates. There were 6 or 7 people sorting the large bins, and they were filled with a random assortment of canned and boxed food. Their job was to sort this into two shopping carts, cans and miscellaneous. The bins were about 5’ by 5’ and 4 feet deep, two people would go in and fish out food from the bottom while the rest of the students sorted it all. Once the carts were full they would be transported to the line of crates to be distributed into smaller categories. Each crate had one or two people operating and there were people at the start of the line calling out food as they went along. For example, chili and beans would go in one crate and corn in another and so on. If an item went through the line without going in any crates it would go into a miscellaneous bin at the end. When a crate was full it would be carried to shelves for the food bank. There were also a couple of minor jobs as well, like throwing away trash, fetching carts and crates, and taking apart packaging. In all, we sorted over 6,000 pounds of food for F.I.S.H.

More About F.I.S.H
F.I.S.H does more for those in need other than provide food. They have a thrift store in Carson City to provide fresh, clean clothes; other food banks; and client services. It was founded in 1979 to provide services to the rapidly growing homeless population. They also help specific families get on their feet through their Transitional Housing Programs and support NVenergy Special Assistance Fund grants for utility payments. For more information and to learn how to volunteer, visit the F.I.S.H website at https://www.nvfish.com/