Kitchen manager Curtis Green, right, talks with two Lighthouse School volunteers, Shauna Mardock, left, and Rande Jones. The eighth-graders have volunteered at each evening this week at the South Coast Gospel Mission. Also on the food line are Ciara Dempsey and Sam Wiggins. World Photo by Lou Sennick

Lighthouse School students had a desire to help the Bay Area’s homeless. The Hauser school’s student council listened — and got involved.

Tim Neeno, the council’s adviser and a teacher at the school, started making the rounds at local agencies and Coos County to find a group they could help “where needed.”

What Neeno found was the South Coast Gospel Mission in Coos Bay, which helps house and feed people who are homeless.

The Mission welcomed the students’ help. Every evening this week, council members and other students from the school have been helping serve the evening dinner, cleaning up and doing whatever was needed.

More than 20 students have been helping kitchen manager Curtis Green on the serving line this week, including cleanup afterward.

Thursday evening’s dinner included chili dogs or hamburgers, tri-tip steak, chicken, beans and macaroni.

Neeno, joined by his wife, Laurie, also worked on the serving line.

Other students at the school helped out in other ways.

Fifth-graders donated toys; sixth-graders, toiletries and medicine; seventh-graders, T-shirts; and eighth-graders gathered dry canned food.

This might not be the end of it.

Neeno said some parents now are involved in the project and are helping  explore the possibility of having students volunteer throughout the year.