It’s Wednesday morning and I smell pancakes on the third floor hallway.

I don’t need to be jealous of another advisory receiving a warm breakfast though, because I know my advisory is the only one lucky enough to have their teacher making pancakes on a skillet.

Being a part of Mr. Hollin’s “Mighty Ducks” advisory has been about more than just enjoying a warm breakfast every other week and playing charades against Mr. Powell’s advisory, the “Butterfly Ninjas.” It’s been about building relationships with each other and extending our friendship outside of room 306.

At first I was uncomfortable changing from homeroom to advisory, especially after making friends in my homeroom for the past three years.

But, after the first week of being in Mr. Hollin’s advisory and deciding on our name being the “Mighty Ducks,” I realized I was mistaken. I quickly became excited for the rest of the year.

During the canned food drive, which the Mighty Ducks won, we raised over 700 cans.

Although we had a friendly competition between the advisories of Mr. Powell and Mr. Scholl, Mr. Hollin encouraged our advisory to reflect on the fact that not everyone is as lucky as us to be warm and well-fed. His encouragement made the canned food drive fun, giving us the motivation we needed to collect more cans than any other advisory.

He also encouraged us to go to the Sharing Table, a food kitchen that takes place every Saturday at the Prince of Peace Church in Edgewood. On Nov. 20, our advisory slowly filtered into the dining hall and began preparing to feed the less fortunate. We served the guests a warm Thanksgiving meal and socialized with them.

The dining hall filled up with elderly people, disabled people, and families with children.

A woman who was sitting at the table I was serving really opened my eyes. She noticed my JC sweatshirt and began to tell me how her daughter graduated from JC. She proceeded to pull out a photo of her daughter, who was dressed in a JC uniform. Her daughter graduated from a private high school and is attending college now, yet she is relying on the Sharing Table for a warm meal. This experience with her was truly humbling.

Besides volunteering our time, the Mighty Ducks are keeping with the spirit of Christmas by purchasing a Christmas tree to adorn with ornaments representing ourselves. More importantly, we’ve decided to adopt a family.

During this holiday season, we’re extending our helping hands to families who are unable to have a Christmas with gifts.

I’m extremely proud to say that I’m a part of the Mighty Ducks. We are excited to come to advisory every morning because Mr. Hollin has successfully incorporated good morals and fun into something that could otherwise be boring.