Shikellamy seniors getting support from the community through social media
SUNBURY – Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s still a memorable ending to senior year at Shikellamy High School, thanks to big community support. ‘Adopt A Shikellamy Senior’ is a recently created Facebook group ‘adopts’ a senior by sending them graduation gifts and messages.
Organizer and Shikellamy Senior Class Advisor Diane VanKirk says parents or students themselves post a description and the community responds from there, “It’s minutes after I get a notification that someone has posted to be adopted that somebody else is commenting. ‘I’ll adopt them.’ There’s approximately 110 of them who have already been adopted.”
VanKirk says it was others who came to her with the idea and then she created the Facebook group to support the Class of 2020.
After someone adopts a senior, the senior then shares contact information….and the community isn’t sending just cards, “People have gone above and beyond. They have sent gift baskets, and people have ordered individual yard signs for them, and gift cards, and snacks, and supplies for their college. It’s just been amazing.”
VanKirk says her son, Jared, who’s a senior at Shikellamy, has already benefited from the community. She says Jared and the rest of his classmates have been feeling the care of others, “They were surprised that so many people would reach out. I know that Jared has received several packages and gift cards from different people. Most of the seniors on this page were adopted by not just one person, but two, three or four people in the community.”
There are approximately 185 students in this year’s graduating class.
