![After placing second in their respective LDEs at the Capital District contest in early November, freshman Jesus Jaramillo-Gallegos and freshman Wyatt Pickett will compete at the Area XII LDE contest in Georgetown on Nov. 23. Jaramillo-Gallegos is competing in Greenhand Spanish Creed Speaking, while Pickett’s LDE is Greenhand Creed Speaking. “Honestly, [I’m excited for] just traveling around, maybe meeting more people,” Jaramillo-Gallegos said. “And [I’m] nervous about probably just not being able to define my weak areas. I feel like I did decent for my first time ever doing this. I just think it’s fun.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Navy-and-Yellow-Simple-Group-Project-Presentation-1200x675.png)
![Holding up T-wolves, the tour group poses for a picture in the Chinese classroom. Sophomore Lydia Ou, junior Phu Trung and senior Yushan Pan gave a tour to Taiwanese diplomat Andrea Yang on Nov. 8. “I was so excited when I heard I would get to give the tour because it’s a big deal,” Ou said. “She’s from the US embassy for Taiwan, so she’s really important. I’m so privileged [to get this opportunity] and I’m so excited.” Photo by Skyler King](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Main-Taiwan.jpg)
![Students drew chalk art in honor of Veterans day. This is just one of many things the school does to show appreciation to veterans, and the art will remain in the courtyard as a reminder of all of the veterans who served their country. “On veteran’s day, I think it’s a great thing we do at school to honor people that served [who are] at our school or family members,” English teacher and cheer coach Nadira King said. “It makes me feel proud, and it makes me remember the [veterans].”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Capture.png)
![Smiling at the camera, Author Ehigbor Okosun, members of Page Turners, and other students reflect on the author's visit. “I thought the visit was great,” Senior Amia De Leon said. “It was interesting talking to her and [getting to know] her process and her thoughts and books in general. But I think the reason it went well [was that] people got to ask questions. I'm glad that she said so much in response to the questions and it wasn't just one and done. [The author’s responses] felt very articulate.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Sebastian-5-1200x800.jpg)
![Standing in front of the field at a freshman football game, cheerleader freshman Jacob Gaudreau along with teammate freshman Bella Gibson pose for a photo during halftime of game. “[Cheer has] definitely given me a much more outgoing personality,” Gaudreau said. “I used to be very introverted, so it's definitely made me more extroverted towards people.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Ingrid-204-1200x800.jpg)
![Holding a wooden pizza toy, senior Taylor Peterson plays with small children in Bucaramanga, Colombia. During the summer, Peterson traveled to Colombia to help build an elementary school that only had two classrooms but five or six grades with one teacher. “We add[ed] two more classrooms,” Peterson said. “It’s kind of hard when you have two or three grades in one classroom and you only have one teacher. It’s very hard to actually get some beneficial learning. [The extra classrooms will give the students] a better quality of education because they’ll actually have a place specific for their learning.” Photo by Taylor Peterson](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Taylor-P.png)
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-1200x804.jpg)
![Swinging with his arm extended, senior Nolan Park hits the ball smoothly over the net and to the opponent’s side. Park is one of four varsity tennis captains and helped the team win district championships. “Winning district champs was a pretty awesome feeling,” Park said. “We had lost to Liberty Hill a couple of weeks before, but when we played them [again], we came out and really took care of business. We took them out and it was just a really awesome night.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Kassidy-419.jpg)
![Standing proud, varsity senior athletes Rafael Escobar, Griffin Jacobs, Jakob Martin, and juniors Jackson Springer and Jack Morris pose with their newly earned medals. The varsity team finished third out of 14 teams on Sept. 25. “The team's primary goal is to win the district championship,” head coach Cody Price said. "We're confident that with our action plan in place, we can accomplish this mission. [For the next tournament], our preparation involves assessing our strengths and weaknesses, celebrating milestones and creating individual development plans." Photo courtesy of Cody Price](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/golf.jpg)
![The cross country team poses for the camera after finishing the district meet. The varsity boys, JV boys and JV girls all placed third and the varsity girls placed fourth. “Coach put in the right training for us for this season, so I think we will be peaking this week and the next couple of weeks,” varsity runner and junior Nathan Kukla said. “The chances of making it to state are very high, but we don’t settle for the lowest and there is always going to be that chance, so [we] race for the best.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Heidi-831-1200x900.jpg)
Santa’s Little Helpers
Local Police Department Hosts Fundraiser For Toys For Kids
Officer Ott poses next to the overflowing Blue Santa toy donation bin. Blue Santa also takes monetary donations to help families in need. “We will buy gift cards with the donations they can go to families with small kids and you can buy formula or baby food or whatever they may need,” Officer Ott said. “Most people’s donations are geared toward younger kids, but we want to include thirteen-fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds.”
December 10, 2021
From fighting crime to saving the jolliest day of the year, Operation Blue Santa is an organization started by local police departments to help children in need receive gifts and even a nice holiday meal on or around Christmas. There are a number of ways people outside the police force can help, either by donating toys or Christmas gifts for kids, donating money through a GoFundMe, or a secure PayPal. These donated gifts go to the Austin Police Department (APD) rather than the Cedar Park Police Department (CPPD), but monetary donations are also accepted at the CPPD, as well as a surplus amount of and volunteering needed to help organize or distribute the toys.
The Cedar Park PALs program is partnering with CPPD to help provide children in need with toys this year. Children in the surrounding areas of Austin will be directly impacted through any donations made through PALs or even some student who decides to pitch in.
“Any student, adult, or business in the community can contribute toys or funds to this great cause,” PALs teacher Jared Lippe said. “I love the fact that all contributions directly impact our neighbors right here in the Cedar Park area.”
PALs is a program open to juniors and seniors that is a mentor program that aims to help students and or give back through community service. The term PALs is an acronym for Peer Assistance Leadership and Service, PALs volunteers give service back to the community through donations.
“For me, Blue Santa means a family who may not have been able to celebrate Christmas this year will get the opportunity to enjoy Christmas morning and know that their kids will be able to celebrate and receive gifts or a Christmas meal like many other families,” senior Bella Fernandez said.
The Cedar Park Police department on request will help families in need and will also connect through city workers to help to ensure everyone has toys for their children or necessary money to help. Money can be given out to struggling families through gift cards, so they can spend it on whatever they feel would make their Christmas celebration better.
“Blue Santa is an initiative by the [Cedar Park] Police Department in an attempt to provide assistance during Christmas for families who are underprivileged or lack the resources, for what that deem to be a good Holiday for their family,” Student Resource Officer Mike Ott. “Our attempt is to give back to the community through our resources to get donations and give back to the community.”
On the Blue Santa website, it states that over 500+ donors donated last year, and this year we have the same number of 500 plus. The website has its donors listed and has donors that range from small local businesses to large corporations such as Walmart. The only contributors that are listed are ones above one thousand dollars, but donations of any denomination are accepted.
“In past years I have donated money towards Blue Santa, it makes me happy to know that people in our community no matter their current situation will be able to celebrate Christmas and have gifts under their tree for their kids,” Fernandez said. “This brightens their kids days, but also brightens the parents’ days seeing how excited their kids are that Santa dropped off gifts.”
The toy drive at Cedar Park High and the Cedar Park Police Department only go to cedar park residents, although many other police departments have Blue Santa toy drives. Travis County’s version of the Blue Santa is Brown Santa as their uniforms are brown instead of the blue uniforms CPPD has.
“I really like the program, I like knowing that the police department provides multiple different assistances to the community of Cedar Park through different avenues,” Officer Ott said. “I love helping the kids because I think they’re the future and it’s good for them to have good interactions with law enforcement and what better way for that to happen than with toys.”
Blue Santa was started for children whose parents couldn’t afford gifts and toys for their children, so local police would help out their community and with the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of people lost their jobs. This means that many local families will be without money to provide Christmas gifts for their children and the need is greater this year than in years prior.
“There are a lot of families going through hard times, especially through these crazy Covid days right now,” Lippe said. “It’s so encouraging to see people come together to support others and help provide a happy holiday season for families in need.”
![Sucking in a breath of air, freshman Lily Pope competes in the 200 yard individual medley. On Oct. 25, the swim team competed in the AISD Swim Invitational. Overall, the girls team took second place and the boys team came in eleventh. “My favorite stroke is butterfly because I do the best in that stroke,” Pope said. “I feel like [butterfly] can test how [your ability] to convince yourself to keep going. The hardest part of swimming is convincing yourself to stay strong and keep pushing during a hard race [when] everything is tired.”](https://cphswolfpack.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/POPE-300x201.jpg)
