St. Charles East to auction off students' woodwork
For many children, Christmas morning is about the payoff for a whole year of trying to be good by finally getting the gift they've been begging for. For many other children, there is no payoff nor any real joy to Christmas at all.
"My dad was an orphan," said St. Charles East High School Principal Bob Miller. "Christmas was kind of a melancholy holiday for him. He spent time at nine different foster homes during his adolescent years. There were Christmases where he didn't even receive one present from the families he was with."
Miller would often try to make up for those missed presents when he became an adult and had money to buy gifts for his dad. Now he helps make up for those missed presents by ensuring more than 200 underprivileged youths at Mooseheart Child City & School in Batavia always have at least one gift for Christmas.
St. Charles East High School wood shop students have made toys, furniture, games and sporting goods out of wood for the past seven years to sell at auction. The money raised at the auction pays to purchase gifts from a wish list created by Mooseheart students. This year, students have spent more time than ever in creating wooden projects with the hope of bringing in enough money to fund a happy Christmas for all the youths at the school despite the down economy.
The projects completed by students include everything from a Lego table to a dart board to a cherry coffee table and a 17-foot canoe.
Miller said the canoe is probably the largest project ever completed by students to sell at the auction. Wood shop teacher Jim McCarthy said his students were putting the final touches on the canoe this week after having started work on it in April. The auction, which is open to the public, will begin at 2:15 p.m. Tuesday in the little theater at St. Charles East High School. Then Miller, in full Santa suit, will bring the presents purchased with the proceeds from the auction over to Mooseheart before the holiday.
"This is kind of in my dad's memory, but it's also really for our students to see the smiles on the faces of the kids when they get these gifts," Miller said. "That's a different kind of lesson. You can't teach that."