Patch Awards Raco 2011 Student of the Year

Over the course of 2011, we've seen lots of students in the news, and in December, as we approached our one-year anniversary in town, we decided it would be beneficial to hand out to some of our community’s best people and places. An integral part of who we are is certainly our local youth, as they are the future, the talent, the promise… of our society.

Each anniversary poll category held six nominations, and it was extremely difficult not to individually honor each of the nominees in the student category, because they are all great young individuals. They included a young author, a Valedictorian, a computer graphics artist, a Sprint car driver and a geography bee champion

But, you, the community, had to pick one. And you chose to honor the young man who stood out from the rest – a student who decided to make a difference for a great cause. As many of you know, Spring-Ford students and staff collect every November, to be sent to United States Troops and local non-profits. This year’s was one of the most successful to date, collecting nearly 200 pounds for the cause.

Spearheading that effort was our winner, who collected over 100 pounds of that total for the service project. Hopefully, his determination will inspire future students to top this year’s total in the 2012 edition of the drive, and to do go in our community as much as they possibly can.

So without further ado, with 500 of the 561 votes cast, and interview with Patch’s 2011 Student of the Year is Griffin Raco.

Patch: So, how did you do it? How did you collect that much candy?

Griffin Raco: We went on the morning announcements, posted it, sent letters out to the teachers to ask the students to donate candy. That was really all. We basically did that, a lot of kids came in and donated candy.

Patch: What was your individual strategy to donate 100 pounds of candy?

Raco: We put a video up on the morning announcements and it had music. A lot of kids liked that. I sat outside of the office every single morning and collected candy. So, I think kids started to notice I was sitting there and started to come.

Patch: What inspired you to do all of this?

Raco: I had to do Confirmation hours and my mom thought it would be a good idea to do that. I did that and put a lot of hours in and had fun with it. I organized the candy from chocolate and non-chocolate, too.

Patch: Is this something you think you'll participate in in the future, as well?

Raco: Yes, I think so.

Raco's mother, Jacquelyn is the school nurse at the . She was very proud of her son's efforts.

"I'm extremely proud of him," she said. "Griffin's a really good-hearted kid and a hard worker. He kind of underscores what he did, but he took a lot of time and effort out of his own time to make the bins, collect the bins and donated some of his own money to ship it. I'm proud of him because he's very generous and a good kid."

Thank you, Griffin, for showing us how great Spring-Ford kids can be.