During Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, many people start becoming kinder and give back to their community more often, but students at Tupelo High School give back to the community year-round.

Every year on Thanksgiving day, the local Salvation Army hosts a luncheon for anyone who doesn’t have the means or family to have a proper Thanksgiving dinner. Many students, like Sarah Lambert Hollingsworth and Amy Haadsma, participate in this yearly event with their families.

“We help serve food each year and spread the Thanksgiving cheer,” said Haadsma, a THS junior.

The volunteers arrive at 7 a.m. to prepare the food, and then they serve it to everyone. After the luncheon, they create an assembly line to pack bags of food for families who cannot get to the Salvation Army or cannot afford the food.

“I do it because I like to help people, and I know that I’m blessed to have a family that can have a good Thanksgiving meal,” said Hollingsworth, a THS senior. “I just want to help people who do not have that opportunity.”

Students are also spreading the holiday cheer by baking cookies and distributing them to the people waiting in line at the Tree of Life Clinic located in downtown Tupelo. Last Christmas, Ellen McGregor and her friends baked more than 400 cookies using six different recipes, not including a regular sugar cookie recipe, and put them in bags to hand out to the people in line.

“We just wanted to make Christmas extra special and have cookies for them because they don’t always get to enjoy that,” said McGregor, a THS junior.

McGregor and her friends plan to do it again this holiday season.

Mickey Sesin and Woody Goss choose to spend their time helping out at nursing homes in any way they can.

“Since it’s around Christmas, we are putting little baskets together, and we are going to take them over and give them to the elderly,” said Sesin, a THS senior.

They believe that there is nothing better than Christmas cheer.

THS students do not wait for the holiday season to give back. Many students get involved in Big Brother Big Sister, a program that helps children in need. High school students spend time with their assigned child after school for the entire year. Students help with homework, play with them and serve as mentors.

Teens at THS are also passionate about working with the special needs community. Students help out with the Challenger league in the fall, a seven-week program in which the special needs participants play soccer every Monday for an hour and a half at Ballard Park. Many students also help out with the Special Olympics in the spring. The volunteers spend time each week helping the special needs participants swim and encouraging them along the way. Students like Hollingsworth help out with both.

“I’m really passionate about working with special needs and giving them the same opportunity to do the same things that I get to do,” Hollingsworth said.

Many girls at THS have given back through donating hair. They cut off a significant amount of hair to an organization that supplies hairpieces to children and adults suffering from long-term medical hair loss. Katie Taylor cut off eight inches of her hair in August and donated it to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. A similar program is Locks of Love.

“My hair can easily grow back in a few months, but theirs cannot.” said Taylor, a THS senior. “I just wanted to give someone who is not as fortunate a chance to feel beautiful in their own skin.”