• Bedtime Stories, Love of Reading Brought to Life
• Showing American Spirit
• And ... They're Off!
• Stuff the Bus

Sound Between the Pages, a program run by students from the Greater New Bedford (Mass.) Vocational Technical School, helps parents who can’t read share a bedtime story with their children.

In this chapterwide, cross-discipline effort, students record their performances as they read books aloud, using animated voices and creating sound effects (photo, right). The books and tapes are provided to area families at no charge.

Students also create and provide book-storage boxes, collect and fix reading lamps, and design tote bags, bookmarks and coloring books.

In Dunwoody, Ga., SkillsUSA members at DeKalb High School of Technology, North, celebrated Veterans Day by having Col. Twala Mathis of the U.S. Army speak during an assembly.

Mathis is the second African-American woman in the nation (and first on the East Coast) to command an Army recruiting battalion. For her ground-breaking accomplishments, Mathis received the local SkillsUSA chapter’s award for American spirit.

A SkillsUSA chapter sponsored tricycle races for spooky tykes as part of an annual “Spooktacular” sponsored by the Downtown Paris (Tenn.) Association.

Aside from the Henry County High School members’ helping with children’s games, there were contests for best costume — and for howling — as well as a dance, music and food. People could guess the weight of a large pumpkin (to win $100 for use at downtown businesses) and the number of guitar picks in a container put out by a music store (for a new guitar). Booths representing businesses and organizations offered candy and games.

A school bus normally transports students, but at EHOVE Career Center in Milan, Ohio, one doubled as a warehouse for a SkillsUSA “Stuff the Bus” food drive for the needy. Students collected 10,299 items for the Norwalk Salvation Army and temporarily stored them in a retired school bus.

At a time when requests for food are up 30 percent, Salvation Army office manager Deb Cox says, “These donations will keep our pantry stocked throughout the year.”