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East Side students pay it forward

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">HARRISBURG - Taking a cue from a local bank, East Side School student council members recently found a way to give back to the community after they received a gift.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Student council members received funding toward a poster-sized printer, which will allow events at the school to be publicized more visibly than a regular-sized piece of paper, Student Council sponsor and 5<sup><span style="font-size: small;">th</span></sup> grade teacher Katie Berry said.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">The printer funds were donated by Farmers State Bank of Harrisburg, which has an ongoing campaign of "Pay it Forward," meaning if someone does something nice for a person, that person then should do a good deed for someone else.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">After Farmers donated, student council members decided to conduct a food drive just prior to Thanksgiving to help local families.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"The response was amazing," Berry said. "It was surprising just how much food these kids were able to get donated."

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">So much food, in fact, that after providing for at least eight complete Thanksgiving dinners, additional baskets of food were prepared to give away, plus even more food was donated to a local food pantry.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">Jason Roper, a Special Programs teacher at East Side and assistant Student Council sponsor, said he was grateful for both the generosity of a local business and the students who took the "Pay it Forward" lesson to heart.

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">"These kids really went above and beyond what was expected of them," Roper said. "They really did a great job. And, we appreciate what Farmers State Bank did for them."

<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;">He said the bank's theme fit in with the school's Positive Behavior Intervention System "Cool Tool", which also is Pay it Forward.