From October 22nd through October 26th, Senior Shelby Platner held a clothing drive for her Leadership project. She was mentored by Dr. Ed Schodor, an English teacher at Oakdale, and raised almost 1900 articles of clothing for the Frederick Rescue Mission.  

As many Leadership projects do, it took a lot of preparation and planning. “We started in the summer when Dr. Schodor expressed his interest in hosting a clothing drive,” Platner offered.

She explains that one of the biggest parts of the process was the advertisement. “I put the idea out with flyers, social media, and put posters up.”

“Shelby did a phenomenal job at uniting her friends and the people she does activities with,”  Dr. Schodor commented. Platner involved all parts of her extracurricular life into this project, from the poms’ team to the golf team.

This project was partnered with the National Honors Society, though that wasn’t always the plan. Platner and Schodor decided over the summer that they knew they wanted to collaborate with NHS, and since they both had experience with clothing drives in the past, they thought it was fitting to host one through Oakdale.

The Leadership Academy‘s teacher, Tiffany Malagari, was excited to express its teachings to students. She makes sure to state how it will aid them in the future. “It‘s a self-development course. You‘re learning about leadership skills and how to implement them as an individual in real life scenarios. What qualities and traits do they already possess? How can they then make those qualities and traits stand out and shine?”

Leadership strives to give students opportunities in their future academic careers. Malagari mentions that the class does activities like skill-building and preparation to enter the workforce. “We can really do whatever we want. Whatever our interests are as a student body. For faculty, for bus drivers, for instructional assistants, the media specialists, our custodial staff, we can really go down any avenue we want.”

Malagari also describes one of the most important expectations for the academy. “The expectations for the students going into the Leadership Academy are actually clearly stated in a contract that students will sign upon acceptance into the program. Attendance is one; a student that attends regularly, very little lates. You should be present every day, all day, ready to learn.”

Overall, the clothing drive was one of the most successful drives seen at Oakdale. “Having the plan to do it and telling people about it so they have the time to go through with it,” Schodor expressed, had a great deal to do with the triumph.

The inspiration for this project came from the common belief that the population can do more in general to help the less fortunate. “You don’t need a lot of money, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time to do things for the community that can benefit a lot of people”, Schodor states.

Out of a goal of 800 items, a grand total of 1880 items were donated to the Frederick Rescue Mission. This drive is a great example of a Leadership Project and will hopefully become a long-going tradition within Oakdale High School.