By By RANDI K. PICKLEY / Niles Daily Star
NILES - Every year a new crop of student athletes show us what they're made of. They challenge themselves on the court or on the field, or in the pool. We cheer them on and are elated when they succeed. But we don't always see the whole picture of who they are.
Karissa Fuller, a special education teacher at Niles High School, gets to know these athletes personally. She heads the DFP (Drug Free Players), an organization of high school athletes who volunteer their time to projects that help others.
This year the athletes prepared over a thousand eggs in the DFP's Annual Egg Hunt, planting the eggs in the hallways of the school.
"The kids get all the plastic eggs and bring in the candy," Fuller explained. "They collect the items for about two weeks, then come in after school to stuff the eggs. Then we invite all the teachers and staff, and their children, nieces, and grandchildren," she said. "Basically, any little people they know."
"The students set it all up and came in a half hour early to place the eggs," Fuller said. And according to Fuller, the event was a huge success.
And with over 1,000 eggs divided between 30 children, that's a lot of candy. Fuller laughed, "The parents were probably cringing at all that candy." Fuller heard one of the children in the egg hunt remark, "This is better than Halloween."
In addition to the eggs, the athletes made up bags of jelly beans which they distributed through the halls as well. Fuller said, "The kids ran right past them. They didn't know to pick them up." But according to Fuller, with a little encouragement, they figured it out just fine. "It was more of an Easter egg scramble than a hunt," she said. "I think half the building had eggs in it.
Sometimes those projects are fund raisers. A portion of the benefits go to defray costs for their annual end-of-school trip to Cedar Point. "They really look forward to that," Fuller said. "We leave on the last day of school and get teachers to chaperone. The first night we go to dinner, then spend the next day cart racing or playing mini-golf and riding the roller coasters. We go when the park opens and often stay past closing. We usually stay another night, have breakfast, and then head home."
This is the 14th year Fuller has taken the students on the trip and her enthusiasm hasn't waned. "I love going there. It's my kind of place," she said.
Other projects that the athletes participate in include reading to elementary students, who think the high school students are really cool, according to Fuller. They also do outreach programs to help children get more involved in sports and encourage them to seek local sources like the Y Optimist Club or the 4-H Club. And, Fuller mentions, part of their main message to the children is "staying away from drugs."
So the next time you cheer on those student athletes, remember to say thanks for a job well done - on and off the court.