by charlee beasor
AVON — Jenese Hunt’s family grew up in Avon. Her twin sons graduated from Avon High School and her daughter currently attends Avon Middle School North.
Her sons, Dustin and Austin Lajiness, are also currently serving as Army Airborne Rangers in Fallujah, Iraq. That is what she addressed to a group of eighth-grade students at Avon Middle School North last week.
“They went through Avon schools and had no clue what career they would embark on ... until 9/11 happened,” Hunt said. “That was the first inkling of a soldier in the making. I never heard about it again until they were in the 12th grade. There was not a prouder mother in the room when her two 17-year-old sons raised their right hands and were sworn into the Army together.”
Hunt spoke to the crowd to help kick off their service learning project, Operation Soldier. The classes will be making pillows and cookies, writing cards and letters, collecting snack and leisure items and activities, and sending them to six soldiers and their units in Iraq.
Each of the soldiers that will receive packages have some kind of tie to Avon and the students helping to put the packages together. Two of the recipients are Dustin and Austin Lajiness, older brother of Hunt’s daughter, Presley, who is a student at the school.
The rest are family members of current students at the school.
Students will be gathering items and making pillows and cookies throughout the month of October with the culmination at the Nov. 11 Veteran’s Day program at the school, where past and present members of the military will be recognized.
One of the project organizers, Kris Taylor, a math teacher at AMSN, said this is the second year for the project, though the scale is much larger.
“We had 15 boxes packed last year with about 150 kids (helping),” she said. “This year we have about 375 kids, so we’re hoping to get at least double that many (boxes).”
Taylor is also connected to the Lajiness brothers. She had them both in class when they were in the eighth grade.
“It was very interesting to see (their pictures on the slide show),” she said. “When they were eighth-graders, they would try to switch places, and probably succeeded more times than I know. They were great kids and it’s kinda neat to see them all grown up. They are amazing adults.”
Taylor said the family and consumer sciences class would be baking cookies and the band and choir students would be recording their performances onto CDs to include in the boxes.
So far, the VFW, Sons of the VFW, and the VFW Auxiliary here each donated $100 to the Operation Soldier project. Anyone who wishes to make a donation may contact the Chameleon Team at the school.
“We’re looking for community support too,” Taylor said.
For more information or to contact the school, call 544-4500.
charlee.beasor@flyergroup.com
