Senior Michael Brock hosted an in-school competition to gather clothing and other items to be donated to the Society of St. Vincent De Paul, a charity to help provide food, to help provide clothing, and to help pay for medications for those in economic crises. The competition, held at WCHS throughout February and March, was between the fifth period classes.

According to Brock, “Capstone is an alternate path to graduation.” The goal of a proper capstone project, as stated by Ms. Kavitha Pasala, a Capstone class teacher, is to be a large-scale project for community contribution or human interest.

Brock was not in Ms. Pasala’s class from the start. He switched into her class when everyone else was deciding what they wanted to do for their project. He had a head start because he already knew what he wanted to do.

Brock originally contemplated between an Easter basket game, a dodgeball game, or a homeless drive. “I wanted to help out the West Carrollton community,” he said. “In West Carrollton, we’ve done a lot of things for St. Vincent De Paul.” He figured that he may as well continue the support.

At the time of the end of the competition, Ms. Pasala’s room had clothing bags all around the back left end of the room, stacked atop of one in layers of 2-5 another to save space. Ms. Pasala says Brock may have gotten the most school support of any other student taking the Capstone class, calling him a great campaigner with a lot of enthusiasm. “He spoke to the teachers directly instead of sending them emails.” While conversing about his project, he would always keep a large toothy smile with raised eyebrows.

Brock bounced back and forth on how to score the final results for a while. Ultimately, he decided to count score by item, per classroom. For smaller classrooms that would otherwise be at a disadvantage, he multiplied their totals out and average out to item, per person, per class.

The first place winner was Mrs. Mitchell’s classroom, at 1903 items, almost doubling Ms. Nolan’s classroom in second place.

“Thanks to all the contributions, I have reached my goal of 3000 items [to donate to the Society of St. Vincent De Paul]. The overall total was 4793.” An astonishing achievement for all students of WCHS and Michael Brock.