December 20, 2023

Orchard Lake Elementary students created activity bags for hospital patients and their siblings staying at the Ronald McDonald House on Friday, December 15 for their annual school-wide Day of Service. The Ronald McDonald House is an organization that provides housing and other support for families of pediatric patients 21 years old and younger.

Different grade levels of students (buddy classes) collaborated, such as a 5th grade classroom with a 1st grade classroom, to create the bags. They got to decorate the bags, write an encouraging message, and put together a coloring book. 

After decorating the bags, students picked out donated items to include in each bag. Each patient/sibling at the Ronald McDonald House will receive a pop-it fidget toy, miniature stuffed animal, book, a dot game, Goldfish, grippy socks, and crayons for their coloring books in their activity bags. 

Altogether, the students donated more than 400 activity bags to the Ronald McDonald House. OLE was also so overwhelmed with donations that all of the extra supplies that didn’t make it into the bags were also donated to the Ronald McDonald House.

Upon receiving the donated activity bags and extra supplies, the Ronald McDonald House sent the following thank you to students and staff at OLE: 

“Wow! These are awesome pictures and the gift bags turned out amazing! The families here are so lucky to have community groups like Orchard Lake Elementary to take the time to do projects like this. All of your hard work has already been appreciated by so many patients & their families. Please be sure to send a huge thank you to all of your students & staff.”

A special thank you to OLE music teacher Carol Metz for leading this event along with the rest of this year’s fifth grade student leadership team. OLE also wants to thank all the parents/staff volunteers and donors for helping make this event possible.