The Resilience Academy has the holiday spirit with door decorations and multiple projects that speak to the season of giving. Students and staff are working to help spread cheer inside the school community and out.
- The Peer Leadership class and Community Service club are coloring holiday cards and writing inspirational notes that will be delivered to the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital in Westchester County next week.
- Staff members are collecting donations of clothing, toiletries and non-perishable food. Pegasus students are helping to assemble the care packages.
- Staff members are collecting donations for an Adopt-A-Family program.
Students Meaa Sibley, Ja’Miyah Smith and Stephen Fekishazy spent ninth period in the Learning Commons Wednesday, coloring cards and writing notes.
“I think it is very sweet of the school to do this as there are kids out there struggling,” Sibley said, adding that she understands what that is like. “It helps me to help other people feel better,” she said.
Smith was excited to be able to take things she likes doing (coloring and drawing) and “make people feel important. I want people to feel like they matter by writing a note and coloring.”
While Fekishazy said he would rather go to the hospital and give the kids a big smile to help them, he said the cards will “show the people that we wish them the best of luck.”
Some students don’t look forward to time away from school. The care packages are ways to show them that the staff and other students care.
“We’re trying to build a community,” RA teacher Krystine Nardozzi said of the care packages, adding that if students have food and clothing it may help them in school as well.
Fellow teacher Christina Olson echoed that sentiment. “We want to be a support for our students.” 
The two teachers along with Kevin Little, a senior program assistant, are working hard to be able to help as many people as possible.
Olson said staff members have already started to bring in items from the list which includes: men’s and women’s deodorant, fruit cups, reusable water bottles, wet wipes, hand lotion and sanitizer, winter gloves, hats, scarves, ear muffs, lip balm, feminine hygiene products, pimple patches, hair ties and combs, nail glue and fake nails, socks and underwear, laundry detergent and dryer sheets, toothbrushes and toothpaste, sweatpants, cotton swabs and cotton balls.
Students in Nardozzi's Pegasus class began assembling some of the care packages Dec. 12.
Student Devyne Smith said through an app on his iPad that he thinks recipients will feel "excited and happy" to receive them and he “felt good” about helping. Classmate Braedin Henry said helping to create the packages makes him happy “because I care about them. I care about people – my family and all people in the world.”
Members of the community who wish to donate items, may do so by bringing them during school hours, 8 a.m.-3 p.m., to CTI/Resilience Academy. Please specify the project for which they are to be used. Clothing can be new or gently used, as Pegasus students will wash and fold them.
One of the biggest requests from students are grocery store gift cards. Little said that if every staff member gave $1, they would be able to provide cards for multiple families.