Photo by Samantha Davis. True Light Christian School students parade to Hope Harbor to hand deliver donations they gathered for Mission Week Friday morning. Hundreds of packages of toilet paper, paper towels and tissues were donated.

MARSHALL — Students of True Light Christian School spent a week gathering paper towels, toilet paper and tissue to donate to Hope Harbor, and paraded down North High Street Friday morning to hand deliver their donations.

“This is awesome,” Hope Harbor site director Melissa Bruns said. “A couple years ago, I think it was in 2021, we went the whole year without buying toilet paper, because people were donating it.”

Hundreds of paper good packages were brought to True Light over the past couple days from students, families and local community members. The entire school was involved in the process.

True Light had “Mission Week” last week that brought in a few guest speakers.

The school also made donations to Lost Timber, a bible camp in Murray County.

A guest from Lost Timber and Bruns also visited the school to speak to students throughout last week.

“We are a Christian ministry group home for teen girls in Marshall. We have a boys home in Parker, South Dakota as well,” Bruns said about Hope Harbor. “Our home here is for girls 12 to 17, basically just at-risk youth that need some help with biblical counseling, school, that kind of thing.”

The students were eager to line up in the front of the school and step outside for a few minutes to partake in their community service.

As they were making their way toward Hope Harbor, kids were sporting wide smiles while filling the air with chants to announce their arrival. This is the first year True Light has done an event like this.

“We challenged the students to bring in things like a toiler paper drive for Hope Harbor, because they can use this stuff all the time,” True Light principal Zach Schubert said. “So, if each student brought one (thing), I told them we would do a “‘toilet paper march.'”

The students were greeted by Hope Harbor employees and residents, as they all gathered to take a picture with the donations in front of the house.

“It’s just a great donation,” Bruns said. “We always need it, and it doesn’t expire. This will probably get us through the whole year, and then we’ll try to just continue to do that.”