WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: High school students kick off summer break with service

High school students kick off summer break with service

By Julie Straw - bio | email

Jackson, MS (WLBT) -  Some 200 teens have opted out of a sun filled weekend on the beach for a chance to help others.  At the Mississippi Food Network dozens of hands are helping pack up and move out food for families in need. 

"People over here are packing boxes and folding them up," said Jedd Mook from Enterprise Attendance Center in Brookhaven. "We got people over here taping them and we are just counting out 20 packs of eggs and stacking them in boxes."

"It's not hard, but we're all getting good service out of it," said Megan Kaye Donahoe of Indianola Academy in Indianola.

Over at the Red Cross in Jackson another group of teens are helping clean up and organize the charity's headquarters.  "It was like trashed during the Magee tornadoes.  They just threw all kinds of stuff in there.  Now we're organizing," said Archaud Keyes from Taylorsville High School in Taylorsville.

Disaster relief handouts and supplies will be easy to grab and go thanks to the students hard work.  They all come from different schools, but are part of the same group.  It's called HOBY, the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership program that began more than 50 years ago.

"It's a leadership conference for students who just finished the tenth grade and it is usually the leaders in the school," said HOBY group leader Dara Moak.  "We bring them here to teach them how to be better leaders and how to get them involved in their communities."

So when the teens are not serving they are learning to take a stand and use their talents to better their communities when they return home.  The students were selected by school counselors and teachers to participate in the HOBY leadership conference.