Lost and found items now being donated Teen Challenge charity

Photo by Divya Vadlakonda

 The lost and found bin outside of the office routinely collects jackets and water bottles.

Students walking by the lost and found outside the main office sometimes see an imposing pile of jackets, crumpled novels and assorted water bottles stacked on a table near the entrance doors. 

All these items, if unclaimed, are donated to Teen Challenge, a nonprofit that provides recovery programs for teens with destructive, abusive and addictive lifestyles, assistant principal Matt Torrens said. 

Previously, the school donated lost and found belongings to the local Goodwill store until administrators discovered SHS students themselves were going there and buying expensive items that they had no genuine need for 

“We wanted to start donating to Teen Challenge because then we knew where it was going and that it was going to a good cause,” Torrens said. 

Office staff donate the items to Teen Challenge every six weeks. They started announcing the dates of donation for the first time last December to give students a heads-up and avoid potential debacles of donating important belongings. 

Torrens recounted an incident where a student’s family heirloom was almost donated, but was recovered a day before donation.

“Our mistake was donating the whole pile right away, so what we’re doing now is announcing it a week prior,” Torrens said.

Though there are many belongings that have accumulated in the school’s lost and found bins — one in the MAP building, library, music building and gym — it is not an abnormal amount compared to previous years, Torrens said. 

As for the most commonly lost belongings, Torrens said water bottles — currently two buckets worth — are the most frequently lost and unclaimed items. Jackets and shirts are the next contenders. 

Water bottles and Falcon merchandise not picked up by the end of each 6-week period are washed and given to the Green Team to sell and promote their message of sustainability. Highly expensive items, however, such as AirPods, phones and wallets, are kept in the office at the front desk until they are claimed.

Belongings that will be donated by the end of the semester:

1.  Backpacks
2.  Batting Helmets
3.  Booster Seats
4.  Jump ropes
5.  Pencil Sharpeners
6.  California Drivers-Ed Handbooks
7.  Leather Jackets
8.  Nike Shoes
9.  Badminton rackets
10. Berets

If any of these items sound familiar, consider retrieving them from the office to lessen the load of the lost and found.