Northern Lehigh Middle School students collected donations of hygiene products to benefit homeless services in Lehigh County.

The school recently completed its annual “Hearts for the Homeless” charitable campaign, which has been a middle school tradition for many years, according to building Principal David Hauser.

Hauser said that this year, the school donated 544 products to those in need, and presented the donation to Caring Hearts, their community partner, at the school’s recent Valentine’s Day Dance.

He said the school’s student council, along with the school’s Bulldogs INSPIRE Student Leadership team, participated.

“As part of our Bulldogs INSPIRE, we teach what we call essential skills, goal setting, teamwork, perseverance and leadership,” Hauser said. “A charitable project, Hearts For The Homeless, has been a (Northern Lehigh) Middle School tradition for two decades.

Hauser noted the school has worked with different programs over the years, including Caring Hearts, which it has worked with this year and last year, helping families around the immediate area.

“Typically we focus on hygiene products; sometimes those are things with the greatest needs, and sometimes those are overlooked,” he said. “We’re able to take one thing away from their worries.”

Hauser said that Denise Martinez reached out to him last year about doing some type of collaboration for charity.

“I thought this would be a natural fit,” he said. “Caring Hearts will take our donations and make sure they are (distributed).”

Hauser said it took two weeks for the students to collect the donations, and added that the school invited Caring Hearts to come to its Valentine’s Day Dance last week.

“Midway through, we announced the total number of donations to the student body, and I presented the donations to Denise Martinez,” he said. “One student’s name was drawn (from a hat) to put a nice cream pie in my face because every student who made a donation got their name in a hat, and that happened if we met our goal of 500 (items).”

Hauser said Caring Hearts was extremely grateful for the donations.

“They were ecstatic,” he said. “They really want to have our students be leaders in the community.”

As for the students themselves, Hauser said they too were equally proud to have contributed toward the cause.

“The kids were very proud to make that difference,” he said. “We did a third marking period kickoff assembly where I presented this event to the students, and we’re actually focusing on perseverance, which is an essential skill right now and talking about how those less fortunate have to persevere through all those challenges.”