This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

BURLINGTON, NC (WGHP) — Students from Western Alamance High School are volunteering on their day off from school.

It was a teacher workday in the Alamance Burlington School system, but members of the football team and ROTC decided giving back was more important than sleeping in.

“I’d rather make valuable, my time valuable and help out somebody rather than spending my afternoon doing what I want to do,” Chazz May, a Western Alamance Sophomore, said.

They are helping to put together care packages for the non-profit CrossPoint, which supports Veterans and active-duty members of the military. “These packages are going to be mostly to the army that is now stationed on the border of Ukraine and Poland.  We’ve had moms that have contacted us and say my boys are there and they’re hungry. If they could just use a word of encouragement. The community has stepped up and given us tons of support,” Anna Liese Call, CrossPoint’s program director, says.

Every item in the care packages was donated by members of the community.

“The outpouring has been amazing,” says Call. “I expected 15 kids here today. We have more than 50. So we are going to be able to package these packages. We’re going to be able to deliver some to Fort Bragg. We’re going to be able to send them to the post office this afternoon. It’s such a blessing.”

For members of the football team, it is a way to give back to their community.

“Most everybody from our football team is here and it’s a great community and we want to let the veterans know that we appreciate what they’re doing with serving our country,” said Trey Horton, a Western Alamance sophomore.

For members of the NJROTC,  this hits close to home. It’s one way they can feel like they are serving their country now. Chesnee Gilland is a senior member of the organization. She loves to support our veterans, our deployed troops in any way she possibly can. “I think that this is my way of helping in Ukraine,” Gilland added.

Watching the students fill the boxes with goods, Call says she noticed they’re enjoying being a part of something larger than they can imagine. 

“Our program is all about understanding,” she says. “Like I said before that our freedoms are not free. I think a lot of times it takes knowing a veteran, it takes stepping out of your comfort zone to realize they’ve left home, they’ve left jobs, they’ve left their family. They’re missing holidays with their family to keep us safe here at home. I think the kids are getting an idea of it when they ask me, you know, why are you sending this? And it’s because they don’t have it. They’re living in a tent it’s cold.  I think it becomes real to them.”