Students Making a Difference: WAFER volunteer

LA CROSSE, Wis. — A La Crosse middle school student is proving you’re never too young to start volunteering.

Longfellow Middle School student Ethan Overgard has been giving his time at the WAFER food pantry for a year. Overgard started volunteering when he was just 12 years old, the minimum age required at most places.

Overgard’s family lives outside of the city so he needed to figure out a way to get to WAFER after school. He asked his grandma to ride the city bus with him for the first time and now he’s riding it by himself every Thursday.

“It just started out, I was just coming home on Thursday’s with nothing to do, all my homework was done, just laying around. So my mom kind of suggested it and so I was coming because she wanted me to, and then she gave me the option to quit and I thought just stay with it and now I kind of like it,” said Overgard.

Overgard says volunteering has brought him out of his shell too. He couldn’t think of a better place to volunteer his time.

4094922

“It’s a good experience. You get to meet and get related with a lot of people you might not have seen yourself hanging out with before, you know, learn a lot about people,” said Overgard.

Along with volunteering at WAFER, Overgard also maintains good grades and plays several musical instruments.

If you know a student who is going above and beyond to make a difference by volunteering, News 8 would like to hear from you.

You can nominated them for the Students Making a Difference award.

Along with the recognition, the students also get a certificate, a $100 donation to their group or charity, a t-shirt and a DVD copy of their story.