Helping Hands has been selling T-shirts to people in the school and community as a fundraiser for the program and the students who participate in it.

“The purpose of the T-shirt fundraiser is to raise funds for scholarships towards graduating seniors who have completed the program,” sponsor Michelle Thacker said. “They have to graduate and complete the program with a certain grade point average and have no discipline issues.”

The fundraiser gives graduated seniors who participated in Helping Hands small scholarships. They give out as many $250 scholarships as possible every year.

“We’ve allotted two,” Thacker said. “Last year, we were able to give five because we had such a good year, but this yea,r we are not able to sell as much product and offer out product out to the community, so we needed another avenue to generate funds to provide an opportunity to continue the scholarships.”

Due to COVID-19, Helping Hands has had a different year, as they have not opened the Indian Grounds coffee shop this semester and have limited their cookie and treat sales.

“Within the first two days, we had 12 shirts sold,” senior Helping Hands member Klineesha Allen said. “This is my second year in Helping Hands, but we never did T-shirt sales last year. But ,the cookie sales and sales from the bakery have changed a bit, so we had to sell T-shirts to make up our losses.”

The shirts cost $12 for a regular-sized shirt and increase with larger sizes. Long-sleeved shirts are $15 to $18, and hooded sweatshirts are $30 to $33.

“Currently, we have sold 24 shirts,” Thacker said. “The students just were able to get a new form in their hands last class period, so we should have some more soon. I’m hoping that the numbers will go up.”