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Date: 12/23/2019
WILBRAHAM – Students who participate in the Above the Influence Club at the Minnechaug Regional High School are finding ways to give back to the community all year-round. In addition to spending time with veterans and soup kitchens, the students host a clothing drive each year that benefits the substance abuse unit at the Providence Behavioral Health Hospital in Holyoke.
Jason Dalessio, an Alternative Learner Program teacher at Minnechaug, co-founded the club four years ago with a co-worker who has since moved away. He has served as the advisor ever since.
“A woman who was the drug-alcohol counselor here, she was starting this club,” he explained. “About four months in, she got another job at another school and so I ended up being the sole club advisor of the club.”
Since starting the club, he said it has grown to a size he never could have imagined. “So when I first started the club four years ago with this woman, it had maybe 10-12 kids. It was just sorta like an experimental see what we can get,” he explained. “And then every year over the four years it’s gone from 12 kids to say 20 kids, to 40 kids and this year it grew to 80. Eighty plus actually, it’s like 85 or 86; something like that.”
The students participating in the club are varied in grade levels, interests and activities they are involved in, he noted.
Dalessio told Reminder Publishing that prior to serving as the advisor for the Above the Influence Club, he ran a community service-based club called the Lumberjack Club. When he started the Above the Influence Club, he brought with him two service events that he used to do with the Lumberjack Club.
“There’s two events that I used to do at my old club that I carried over, [visiting] the Soldiers’ Home and [Lorraine’s} Soup Kitchen because I could only carry over events that were tied into the genre,” he explained.
These events, he said, have proven to be some of the most popular service opportunities among students in the club. He said, “Everyone loves the Soldiers’ Home and the soup kitchen, those are favorites.”
Dalessio explained the reason he chose those events is not only to serve the community, but to give the students an increased likelihood of interacting with those who have or currently struggle with substance abuse.
“So lots of times veterans have PTSD and one of the things that people with PTSD [may] deal with is addiction.” he said. “With the soup kitchen...it could be divorce, you could have lost your job, it could be whatever. But one of the reasons is that you could be addicted to drugs.”
In addition to exposing the students to people from all walks of life, Dalessio said the students also give up their free time to help out at town and school events.
“We definitely like doing a lot of stuff with the towns. Even if we’re doing something small, like some of these events we help the coalition with,” he explained. “Even if it’s just door greeters, it shows the parents that are coming to the auditorium that the kids care.”
Another way the club has served the community has been hosting drive for the Providence Behavioral Health Hospital substance abuse unit for the last two years.
“We filled up [my SUV] all the way crushed from the window,” he said. Dalessio said the drive had been so successful that clothing and donations had filled his car, and the trunks of two other vehicles, from the floor to the roof.
Dalessio said the last two years Stacey’s Cleaners on White Avenue in East Longmeadow donated around “150 hanging items, whether it’s shirts, pants, coats.” This year, in addition to the donations from Stacy's Cleaners the club will also have donations from Park Cleaners Inc. on Allen Street in Springfield
The club will continue the tradition this year and once again host the drive from Jan. 7 to Jan 28. Dalessio said he anticipates a large response from students, families and Minnechaug employees similar to what he has received in past years. He noted the club had also received several donations from community members that had dropped the items off in the high school’s main office.
Anyone outside of Minnechaug students and employees that wish to donate items can drop them off in the office of the high school at 621 Main St. in Wilbraham. Items can be left to the care of Mr. Dalessio.