While many students had a day off on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, students with The Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School were hard at work.

PA Cyber students across the state spent Jan. 15 volunteering on charity projects — part of the online school’s initiatives to celebrate MLK Day by encouraging service.

Pittsburgh-area students decorated duffel bags to make care packages for foster children and donated clothes and personal care items to the nonprofit Foundation of Hope. In Altoona, students helped clean a local children’s museum for the upcoming season.

And at the PA Cyber Greensburg office, just under a dozen students were gathered to tie no-sew blankets for the local chapter of Binky Patrol, a national nonprofit that provides cold-weather gear to kids in need.

“It’s been something we’ve done year to year — it’s very important to our CEO, Brian Hayden, who does feel that we need to give back to our community, so this is our day of doing that,” said Laurie Richards, regional office representative, about the annual MLK Day volunteering project.

Students and a few parents gathered at the Greensburg regional office on Towne Square Drive, where they already attend weekly enrichment classes to supplement their online school sessions.

“There’s music classes, and they’re involved in STEM and science labs. There’s chorus here, and there’s different art classes and things that they are in, as well as the social parts like trivia and parties,” said PA Cyber parent Renee Seamone, who has two children enrolled in the school.

PA Cyber student Carlina Duball, 12, enjoyed cutting out and tying together the fabric for the project. She worked on five out of the group’s 21 blankets.

Another student, Alyse Roadman, said she likes events like this one as both a chance to volunteer and as an opportunity for social interaction.

“We stay at home and do our schoolwork, and then you’re done and you’re in your house. It’s nice to have things like these to get out and get to have fun and meet people,” said Roadman, 15. “You get to give back to your community, but you’re also getting to meet new people and have a nice time.”

Keeping kids warm

This is the second year that the Greensburg office has partnered with Binky Patrol, according to Richards. The charity sends blankets, hats, scarves and other warm and fuzzy items to children in foster care, homeless shelters, hospitals and other difficult situations.

“We ask that they are handmade, but we do knit, crochet, fleece blankets, quilted blankets … we just want it to be handmade so that you get that love in the stitches, and the kids know that someone was putting that thought in and the time in for them,” said Trisha Eliason, coordinator of the Westmoreland chapter of Binky Patrol.

The chapter usually donates its blankets to local organizations, but in times of crisis, the nonprofit bands together to send blankets wherever needed. The chapter contributed 30 blankets children in Uvalde, Texas, after the mass shooting in 2022, Eliason said.

Volunteers interested in helping to make blankets can reach out through the chapter’s Facebook page, as can any agencies that work with families whocould benefit from the blankets.

“We’re always looking for who needs them and where they need to go,” Eliason said.

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