Student council will donate a majority of homecoming profits to Serenity High School – one of the country’s only substance abuse recovery schools.

“The whole goal of homecoming is to be a super fun school spirit event and also a way to give back,” student council vice president Olivia Deegan said. “Our goal isn’t really to profit off the students. We want to have lots of fun events, have lots of school spirit, but also use that money to give back to our community in some way.”

Serenity High has been part of McKinney ISD for 20 years and helps students recovering from a drug or alcohol addiction.

“Students go to treatment, and when they come out, they come here to continue recovery,” Serenity High principal Stephen Issa said.” Our primary objective is to help them stay sober, support them, and help them finish high school.”

The school has on-campus Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) and Narcotic Anonymous (NA) meetings, yoga and meditation, and a weekly community service program. 

“What makes us uniquely a recovery high school is just the fact that we have on campus NA and AA meetings twice a week,” Mr.Issa said.” We also have separate support meetings, with the guys and the girls. They’re gender-specific meetings, which address things in that way. But we also offer yoga and meditation. And the jewel of our program is that on Fridays, our students participate in our community service program. They’re in the elementary schools and the early childhood school, helping out in the classrooms.”

Serenity plans on using the carnival money to encourage creativity and sober-fun in their students.

“Most likely, the funds will be used to provide our students with some sober, fun activities,” Mr.Issa said. “Every fifth or sixth week of the school year, we do a celebration Friday. This past Friday, we went to a place where the students were given an opportunity to paint. We don’t have enrichment courses here — no art or music. So we take the opportunity to take the students off-campus for those kinds of experiences. A lot of our students are really creative. So if I can allow them to be in an environment where they can express themselves artistically, we will be using the funds for that.”

Learn more about Serenity High: http://serenity.mckinneyisd.net/ 

Donate to Serenity High: http://serenity.mckinneyisd.net/donate.html