Santiam JrSr ASB Fire Scholarship for Students

Hi everyone. I’m the principal of Santiam Jr/Sr highschool in Mill City, Oregon. My school serves approx 300 students in rural Oregon. I have many students who are on a bus for over an hour each day before they even get to school. Unfortunately, we are the school district in Oregon where the Oregon fires ripped through two of the three bigger towns that we serve (Detroit & Gates). The destruction is surreal. We have at least 7 teachers who lost their homes and an unreal number of students. For a small district like ours, this is devastating.

Santiam is the kind of place where kids are still kids. Students offer to help carry heavy boxes for teachers, they still ride their bikes all around town (even past the drivers age), and they make a choice each day to come to school because they love the school and the teachers. And, we love our students.

Unfortunately the poverty level is extremely high. When we ask kids what they would like for Christmas many ask for socks, stocking caps, one even asked for avocados one year because that was her favorite food and they were too expensive to purchase on her own. The poverty is such that students have learned to often prioritize their needs before their wants.

All that said, so many of our students lost everything in the fire. While adults are taking care of the essentials ( i.e. food, clothing, shelter) we must remember that kids lost all of their prized possessions too. Our school has set up an ASB fund that will scholarship students to get to pick out an item to replace. This might be make-up, a basketball, curling iron, stuffed animals, or maybe a special journal. Every kid will be different.

Thanks for considering donating to our kid cause!