What's Happening in Cougar Country

What started as a simple idea between two individuals six years ago has grown into a powerful community tradition of giving. Each October, Mrs. Kelly Wolf, the Lake Catholic Visual Arts Department Chair, teams up with Ms. Julie Tinik for Socktober—a month-long sock drive to support those experiencing homelessness and hardship. 
What began with a few boxes of donations has now turned into thousands of pairs of socks and countless acts of kindness.

This year’s Socktober drive was another incredible success. The Lake Catholic community alone donated 4,109 pairs of socks. Including donations collected at Angie’s New York Style Pizzeria in Mentor-on-the-Lake (155 pairs) and by Tinik herself (1,214 pairs), 5,478 pairs of socks will be split up and delivered to Project Hope, Sub Zero, Forbes House, WomenSafe Inc., and City Mission.

The six-year total for Wolf and Tinik is an astounding 18,943 pairs of socks—nearly 19,000 steps toward warmth and comfort for those in need.

The top donors from Lake Catholic were Lily Long (’27), John Cunningham (’28), Lucas Boling (’29), Mason Ruiz (’29), and Mr. Jamie Simonis.

Wolf, who organizes Lake Catholic’s contributions, looks forward to the drive each fall—even if the start always brings some nerves.

“Every year that Lake Catholic starts collecting, I wonder if we can beat last year’s total,” she said. “I get a little nervous, and then special things start happening. Students, parents, and faculty start getting involved. Social media works in so many ways of getting the word out about what we are doing.”

And when the socks start coming in, it’s a sight to behold. The total from Lake Catholic this year increased by 745 pairs compared to last October.

“As we started loading the socks, I wondered if I had a big enough truck,” Wolf said. “If we had put all 5,478 socks together, we definitely would have needed a bigger truck. That’s a great problem to have! I’m so thankful to the Lake Catholic community and to Julie Tinik that together we can help so many people.”

This year, a new partner joined the effort: Christina Earl, owner of Angie’s New York Style Pizzeria, who placed a collection bin in her store lobby. Earl, known for her support of local causes like Forbes House and Project Hope, jumped right in to help. “She was more than willing,” Wolf said. “Her community spirit made a huge difference.”

For Tinik, Socktober is about much more than socks.

“It’s absolutely amazing and brings me such great joy, especially this time of year with the cutbacks on a lot of programs,” she said. “I’m unbelievably grateful for those who gave a little back. It will definitely help others with nothing. Random Acts of Kindness still lives.”

Each year, Socktober proves that small acts of kindness—like donating a pair of socks—can come together to make a big difference. As Wolf and Tinik look ahead to another year, their shared goal remains the same: to keep spreading warmth, comfort, and compassion, one pair at a time.

*******************

By The Numbers

Over the last six years, Lake Catholic has collected and donated 15,068 pairs of socks! 

• 600 pairs in 2020
• 2,021 in 2021
• 2,999 in 2022
• 1,975 in 2023
• 3,364 in 2024
• 4,109 in 2025
   

One of the core values held closely by all Lake Catholic students and alumni is a Willingness to Serve.

So, when there’s someone in need, it doesn’t matter how difficult the task is.

For sophomore Nick Evangelista (St. Mary of the Assumption), putting his body through extreme conditions was no deterrent to raising money for children battling life-threatening illnesses. 
For 24 hours, from noon on Saturday, October 4, to noon on Sunday, October 5, Nick took part in the 24:in:24 presented by CleanEats at the SPIRE Academy. According to the 24:in:24 website, the event itself features challengers attempting to run one mile every hour, on the hour, for 24 consecutive hours.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done,” Nick said. “I was still so sore for about four or five days afterward.”

After watching his aunt take part in the race a year ago, Nick, who is a member of the Lake Catholic track and field team, decided he wanted to give it a try.

“I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it, all the while raising money for a good cause,” he said.

By himself, he raised more than $1,100 for the cause. He said his mom’s employer, Jenniffer & Co., was the biggest donor, but he also had a lot of single contributors. Last year, the event brought in $565,000 for A Special Wish – Northeast Ohio Foundation.

Nick said he’s been running on his own since about fifth grade after having played basketball for a few years, but he’s never actually trained for something like this. And really, he didn’t train much for the 24:in:24 either. He said he trained for just one day to try to get his endurance up, but then just spent the entire day before the event resting and saving as much energy as he could.
He started off the 24 hours well, doing his one mile per hour in under 7 minutes.

“After each mile, you had to go up two flights of stairs to get back to where we had our camp set up. So, you think you have close to an hour in between each mile, but really it was just about 35 minutes.”

It did get to the point where his mom actually made him sleep for an hour to help his body recover. He slept from 2a-3a on Sunday, which caused him to miss miles 15 and 16.

“You are able to make up the miles you miss,” he said. “So, by mile 19 I was caught up.”

Some of the families and children who benefit from A Special Wish were on hand to cheer on all the runners, and as Nick said, they helped serve as extra motivation for those last few miles over those last few hours.

“The last lap was absolutely the hardest,” he said. “But when you are carrying that flag that you are on your last lap, and then when you cross that finish line, it’s the best feeling.”

After the grueling day, he said he slept until 10a Monday morning, waking up for just a couple of hours before that. Despite the challenge, he said he would do it again.

“Being a part of this school, a place that does stuff like this all the time for other people, is what made me want to do it,” he said. “And when it’s an event like this that helps so many people, anything I can do to help raise money, or just spread the word about it, it means so much regardless of what I have to go through.”
 

One of the Lake Catholic core values is “a willingness to serve.” The sign that you see when you leave the school parking lot reads “Exit to Serve.” All students must complete 50 hours of service to graduate and have 80 hours to qualify to wear the Service Cord at commencement.

Service is woven throughout the fabric of the Lake Catholic school year – service projects on and off campus, Turkey Day, Meal Ministry, Pallbearer Ministry, and the list goes on and on.

Service-learning, though, is another form of service – one that second-year art teacher Carolina Kane hopes to bring more of to her classes with the hope that it spreads throughout the school.

“I’m trying to bring service-learning into what I do in my classroom,” Kane said. “It’s actually a goal of mine. I want it to be incorporated into my curriculum. It’s what I did when I worked at John Carroll, and I want to bring that type of service here.”

Service-learning is more than just a beach cleanup, raking leaves, or shoveling a driveway – although all of those things are important. Service-learning incorporates the learning aspect of the classroom with the service. 

So, although Kane’s Art Foundations class and the Art Club seemingly just made Valentine’s Day cards, there was more to it than that.

“We did these before Thanksgiving, so it was one of the first actual design projects we did,” Kane said. “But it was more than making the cards. It was how they interacted with the card. How did the paper feel in their hands? What colors made sense to use? What font and font sizes made the most sense for this project?”

Although it was a real classroom lesson and project for Kane and her students, the service part of it will have a much broader reach.

As a school, nearly 100 cards were donated to the Lake County Council on Aging’s Meals on Wheels program to be delivered on Valentine’s Day. In total, from nine schools, more than 1,400 cards were collected for distribution.

“When people receive these cards, most of them are just so excited,” said Kelly Johnson, who helps Meals on Wheels spearhead the Valentine’s Day card initiative. “You can just see on their faces how much it means to them and that it makes their day.”

The cards were made before Thanksgiving because Johnson and her team of volunteers have to inspect each card by hand because there is a list of things that each one can, or can’t, say on it.

“Carolina and her students’ cards were awesome,” Johnson said. “While it usually takes us hours to go through a school's cards, I don’t think we spent more than an hour on the cards from Lake Catholic. They followed the parameters perfectly. Every person that hand-checked the cards from Lake Catholic loved them and came away very impressed.”

While a student at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Kane worked as a photographer and visual storyteller with John Carroll’s Center for Service and Social Action (now the Center for Service-Learning and Social Action), which is where she was then hired when she graduated from CIA. And she said service-learning is something she’s always been drawn to and wants to bring more of here at Lake Catholic.

“We see it all the time here – the spirit of giving and service,” she said. “It’s right there in the mission of Lake Catholic. I just want to continue to help our students appreciate their important role of service, but while also learning.”

According to the Council on Aging’s website, Meals on Wheels delivers food five days per week, with an option for frozen meals for the weekend. According to a study conducted by Brown University and funded by AARP Foundation, home delivered meals improve overall health, reduce anxiety and depression, decrease feelings of loneliness and isolation, and help seniors feel more safe and confident about living in their own home.

It may be Lake Catholic’s longest-standing tradition. 

This year marked the 50th year.

Yesterday, the senior class took its turn with Turkey Day. 

What had started back in 1974 as a Thanksgiving feast for friends to enjoy each other as an entire class, has turned into much more for Lake Catholic students, as they live out one of the school’s core values – its willingness to serve.

“This is a very important day for our school and our senior class,” said Mrs. Cari Foster, the school’s Director of Mission and Formation. “We want to carry out our core values every day, but in particular this day, serving those in need is very important. Everything our seniors did today matters.”

The day started with a small prayer service, where there were prayers not only for the senior class but also for those who it was going to help. The seniors chose between eight different service projects and headed out into the community. 

The groups headed to:

• Lake Farmpark, where the students helped set up Christmas trees for breakfast with Santa and cleaned up the barns for when families go for country lights and horse races.
• Outdoor YMCA in Perry, where they cleaned up the area by raking and blowing leaves and moving large tree branches.
• Botanical Gardens, where they also helped with fall clean-up of the garden areas.
• Camp Red Oak, where they worked on various maintenance projects both inside and out
• Vocational Guidance Center, where they worked with those who have developmental disabilities by playing games and making crafts. 
• Deepwood Industries, where they also worked with those who have developmental disabilities by playing games and making crafts. 
• Broadmoor School, where they worked and played with the children.
• Project Hope, where the students, after a tour of the facility, made cards for the packed lunches that are handed out every day, as well as sorting donations and organizing their storage room.

When the students returned to school, they were served a Thanksgiving feast, which was what Turkey Day started as back in the ‘70s. Lunch was served by some parents of the students, who also served as chaperones throughout the morning.

The day ended with the seniors joining the rest of the student body for a presentation from Mrs. Caitlin Alifirenka, co-author of I Will Always Write Back – the summer reading book for the entire school, which focuses on the power of friendship and how it can change lives.
 

Setting a goal is always a measuring stick of your progress.

For the Socktober sock drive held during the month of October, Lake Catholic had a modest goal of collecting 2,000 pairs of socks. It took some time, but eventually, the school blew right past that goal and ended up donating the most socks it ever has over the past five years of participating in this drive.

On Wednesday, November 6, Mrs. Kelly Wolf, the Visual Arts Department Chair and coordinator of the drive, announced the school had collected 3,364 pairs of socks.

According to the Socktober website – happysocktober.com – more than 600,000 people in the United States sleep on the streets each night. “This October, we want … to show that even a small act of love, such as donating a pair of socks, can make a big difference in the lives of our neighbors who are homeless,” the site states.

Wolf knows that what Lake Catholic has been able to collect will make a difference.

“This is the most we’ve ever collected here,” she said. “Eventually the weather is going to start getting colder and people will need these socks. I’m just so grateful for everything our community has been able to do.”

Lake Catholic students, faculty, and staff were motivated throughout the drive by two separate competitions - homerooms all competing against each other weekly, and the four grades competing against each other throughout the entire month.

The monthly competition, for the first time ever, was won by the faculty and staff with 1,438 pairs of socks. The classes followed: sophomores (763 pairs), seniors (466), juniors (300), and freshmen (258). Sixty-one pairs of socks were donated without a name or class designation.

The top donors were: sophomore Lily Long (662 pairs), staff member Mr. Jamie Simonis (500), senior Dakota Mudrakas (310), and junior Matt Florence (261). Each received a Got Socks? t-shirt and a pass for a free school lunch.

Wolf has worked with Ms. Julie Tinik for the past five years collecting socks. Tinik has a passion for helping the homeless and after reading about Socktober through Random Acts of Kindness started her own sock drive in Lake County.  

During the five-year partnership, Tinik and Wolf have have collected 13,465 pairs of socks. Tinik also collects paper products and cleaning supplies to donate to Project Hope.

All socks collected this year will be distributed to Project Hope, Sub Zero, Forbes House, Little Annie's Hope Train, and City Mission.

* * * * *

Other figures

Over the last five years, Lake Catholic has collected and donated 10,881 pairs of socks! 

• 600 pairs in 2020
• 2,021 in 2021
• 2,999 in 2022
• 1,975 in 2023
• 3,364 in 2024

What had started off as a Thanksgiving feast for friends to enjoy each other as an entire class, has turned into much more at Lake Catholic. 
Turkey Day, one of the school’s longest standing tradition started back in 1974, continued on Monday, Nov. 21, as the Class of 2023 lived out one of Lake Catholic’s core values – it’s willingness to serve.

“This is one of the most important days of our school year,” said Alison Ellis, the Lake Catholic Theology Department Chair, and head of the school’s Campus Ministry. “It’s important for the seniors to go out and put our values into action. And we invite the entire school to the prayer service so the underclassmen can see what this means to all of us.”

The day started with an all-school prayer service, asking for prayers not only for the senior class, but also for those who it was going to help. The seniors chose between nine different service projects and headed out in the community. 

Groups were sent off to clean up the Fairport Harbor beach, despite the snow and cold; Broadmoor School, to work and play with the children; Willoughby Workshop, to work and eat lunch with the adults there; Vocational Guidance Center, working with the adults there; Little Annie’s Hope Train, assembling toiletries for the homeless; Grateful Giving, baking cookies for first responders; Karpos Ministry, making hot meals for the homeless at St. Mary Painesville; the Food Bank in Geauga County, making hot meals for the homeless; and shoveling driveways for the elderly in Mentor (which was a change up from leaf clean up because of the weather).

The students came back to school for a catered Thanksgiving feast, which was what Turkey Day started as back in the ‘70s.

“This day originally started just as a way for us to have the entire senior class sit down and enjoy each other over a Thanksgiving dinner,” said Rich Troha, who was the originator of Turkey Day when he was a teacher at here. “It has grown into a day of service but bringing the kids back to school is a nice way to combine what it was to what it is now.”

The day ended with another new addition – a Community Action Poverty Simulation, which is an interactive immersion experience that sensitizes participants to the realities of poverty. The Simulation is a program run out of the Nonprofit and Public Service Center at Lakeland Community College. Dione DeMitro, who executed these simulations at Lakeland before becoming the President and CEO at United Way of Lake County, volunteered at Lake Catholic to head up the simulation.

She said when she works with a group entirely made up of students, that there is at least one who has that “ah-ha” moment to realize how blessed they are. She said she heard from a couple students afterward that they did have such a moment.

“My hope is that when you leave here, you understand how blessed you are,” she told the group as they wrapped up. “I hope you go out and share your time, talents, and gifts with your community.”