Donna Messenger backbone of program

There's one program at Lake City High School that involves more students than football - Youth Volunteers in Action. The program has more than 300 students involved.

The advisor and spirit behind the program is Donna Messenger. She has been involved in the YVA program for more than 15 years. Messenger also coaches track and cross country.

YVA has three main branches. The first is ongoing projects, such as tutoring at the elementary schools, or visiting a nursing home once a week. The second involves special events, such as the food drive or the Leprechaun Scurry - a three-mile family run. The third is Service Learning, which is the volunteer work that is done inside the classroom or during school hours. Students can earn school credits by doing 80 hours of volunteer work in a year. YVA also provides volunteers for programs in the community such as the Festival of Trees.

Messenger took charge of the food drive and motivated the Lake City students to gather about 2,400 pounds of food. District 271 gathered a total of about 4,500 pounds.

Another great program during the holiday season is the tree recycling program. Lake City students pick up trees from peoples' houses for $2 and take them to Avista Utilities where they are burned. When people leave trees out in the street for the city to pick up, the trees are taken to the landfill.

Lake City also adopted 16 families to bring food, presents and clothes to during the holiday season. Messenger also organized that project.

This year Messenger decided to have a YVA council - a class where students have the opportunity to see how projects happen from start to finish. The main project in the class is to create an original activity to start in the community and get people involved. The students all seem to love the class.

Abby Jester said that she loves being involved in YVA because the projects that she does affect other peoples' lives as well as her own.

Messenger loves the class because she sees the students learning how projects are created and how they affect people.

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