Sadie Koffman

FHC’s Community Club provides many opportunities for people looking to volunteer.

Influenced by her mom and her desire to help others, senior Sadie Koffman decided she wanted to start a volunteer club for underclassmen the summer going into her junior year. The two of them went through the process of looking into what it takes to start a club like that; little did they know that senior Caden Harleton was thinking of doing the same thing.

“We had the same idea, and then I emailed [Principal Jon] Haga first,” Sadie said. “ [I said that] I want to [start] a volunteer club. He said that it was so funny because Caden was thinking about doing the same thing.”

Staff Advisor and math teacher Rebecca Lipke took on the project with Sadie throughout her sophomore and junior summers. 

“I think it started with them each having a couple of friends [come in], but honestly, at several points in time we would have 20 kids in here working on things,” Lipke said. 

Sadie and Caden are now the President and Vice President of FHC’s Community Club. After a successful first year of offering volunteer options to students, the club is now collaborating with the National Honor Society (NHS) to provide even more opportunities. The club has many ideas for projects they would like to work on throughout the school year, including cleaning up the roads, tutoring, providing items to Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICU), collecting donations for an animal shelter, and more. 

“They’re helping [with getting] people [to do] the blood drive,” Lipke said. “They’ve organized a couple of other things that the advisors have said can count for NHS hours…It’s where people go if they want to find something to do to volunteer.”  

One of the first meetings this year—held on Tuesdays from 7:25-7:40 a.m.—was dedicated to creating posters for the school’s first blood drive of the year. Most of the posters were just filled with all the information, but Caden decided to get a little cliché, writing, “It’s a bloody good time.”

Because last year was more of a “building year” for the club, Sadie and Caden have a lot of ideas for what the club can do, including working with Kids Food Basket, Corewell Health, Grace’s Kitchen, and many other organizations around FHC.

“[Kids Food Basket] has an amazing organization,” Caden said. “They’ve recently built a new headquarters, and it has a whole farmland, so you can package strawberries and raspberries and [other things] like that. You can also package food like you usually do.”

Caden and Sadie both believe that being involved with FHC’s Community Club can not only get you NHS hours, but also will overall make you feel good.

“I feel like volunteering itself makes you feel a little pride inside, whether it’s helping the homeless at a soup kitchen, making blankets, or anything like that,” Caden said.

Many of these opportunities that the club is interested in are found thanks to Sadie’s mom, who owns an elderly care placement agency. Sadie’s mom sparked her interest and love for volunteering, creating relationships back then that are extremely valuable now.

“When I was young, we’d always go and do [volunteering], so she kind of just knows people who know people, so I think I got a few connections from that,” Sadie said. “Then I thought, ‘Wow, there are actually so many opportunities that not a lot of people do,’ so I’m hoping we can use that this year.”

Many students around FHC who are involved in NHS would most likely enjoy joining the club to have easy access to NHS hours. However, many students turn their heads when they realize that club meetings are before school, meaning that they would need to wake up just a little bit earlier on Tuesday mornings. But Sadie and Caden wanted the club to be open for everyone, and they understand the struggle to balance fall sports, school, and any other extracurriculars during this time of year.

“For seniors especially, this year I feel like you want to go home so you can try to get your homework done so you can go have fun, [which doesn’t always happen],” Sadie said. “I don’t want there to be a 30-minute meeting after school every single Tuesday, where [you remember] ‘Oh shoot, I have to do this’, and then you get home later [than normal]. People do complain about it, and I love my sleep, but I think it’s worth it.”

If you are interested in volunteering more, or are involved with NHS, and are looking for structured ways to get your hours in, think about joining the Community Club at FHC. They meet from 7:25-7:40 a.m. every Tuesday morning in Mrs. Lipke’s room, with free donuts from Caden every week.