Hinsdale Middle School Kindness Club helps donations pour in to help HCS Family Services

With the Stuff the Squad event taking place across District 181 last week, members of the Hinsdale Middle School Kindness Club decided to leverage the opportunity and add the ever popular YouTube "Domino Effect" to help increase donations. Using cereal boxes for dominoes, students created a maze of more than 600 boxes that weaved from the Washington Street entrance to the front door of the school near the parking lot. As last-minute boxes kept arriving, the kids had to constantly move the starting spot. Charlotte Paquette brings in more last-minute donations, while Connor Mason and Alexandra Pieper place them. HMS Principal Ruben Pena addresses the students who gathered first thing in the morning to watch the boxes fall. Social studies teacher Rick Dusek drops off his donations. Yazmin Crisostomo, Paquette and Zaara Singh start the chain reaction. The students then lent a helping hand in filling six squad cars and a fire department utility truck with the cereal, which was donated to HCS Family Services. (Jim Slonoff photos)