https://archive.triblive.com/local/valley-news-dispatch/leechburg-students-share-holiday-joy-and-cookies-with-local-police/
Leechburg students share holiday joy -- and cookies -- with local police
Joyce Hanz | For the Tribune-Review
Students from kindergarten and first-grade at David Leech Elementary made homemade Christmas cards for Leechburg police officers.
Forget the donuts. Cookies are sweeter.
That’s the message more than 100 students from David Leech Elementary in Leechburg delivered during a field trip Friday.
Kindergarten and first grade students from six classes strolled several blocks from the school to the Leechburg police station on Market Street.
This field trip had a charitable aspect — the first annual “Sharing, Caring and Caroling Walk” — was created with a goal of giving back to community helpers in Leechburg, like police officer, said kindergarten teacher and co-organizer Joni Oberdorf.
Carrying dozens of festively wrapped homemade M&M, Snickerdoodle and peanut butter cookies, along with reindeer-themed hot chocolate packets, teachers and students presented cookies and hot chocolate to three officers: Jason Schaeffer of Leechburg police, Chief George Lebetz Jr. of West Leechburg police, and patrolman Jordan Schrecengost of the Gilpin police.
“This is just awesome,” Lebetz said, fighting back tears. “I’m not sharing,” he joked to the other officers.
The officers listened outside as students sang classic holiday carols that included “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
“This is a new tradition,” said kindergarten teacher Joni Oberdorf. “We always talk about sharing and caring and traditions in our classes and we wanted to begin a new tradition this year during the holiday season of giving.”
The teachers listened to student feedback and several students described the police officers as “heroes.”
The kindergarten classes were thrilled to learn they would be baking alongside high school students in the high school’s new state-of-the-art home economics room.
“They thought we were just going to buy cookies,” Oberdorf said. “Instead, the kindergarten classes baked for three days this week. They gained real baking experience — except for the hot oven part, of course. They were thrilled.”
District parents provided all cookie and hot chocolate ingredients, so the entire initiative was at no cost to the district, Oberdorf said.
When the students returned to their classrooms after the visit, one girl asked Oberdorf, “Why did the one police officer cry?”
“I told her those were happy cries. We made him happy,” Oberdorf said.
Joyce Hanz is a freelance writer.
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