Sixth-graders at Oak Grove Elementary School are assembling 300 tied blankets and hygiene kits for the homeless.

12-year-old Ryley Wetlaufer said the students decided on the project after a civics exercise at EmpowerU.

“We just talked about what we wanted to do to help our community, and we brainstormed, and we came up…Mr. Musser’s class last year did hygiene kits for the homeless and we wanted to maybe add on to that so we decided to make blankets so they could be warmer and they could still get the necessities,” Wetlaufer said.

The student-led initiative is called “Heroes for the Homeless.”  Around 75 kids helped with the project. They’ll donate the completed kits to the Salvation Army.

Grants from the Heartland Foundation and the Walmart Foundation paid for the materials.