This year, Gibson Southern’s Life Skills classes hope to make Valentine’s Day a little more special. From January 31 to February 9, the life skills students were selling carnations for $2 each. Students and staffulty could purchase one to be delivered to whomever they were bought for during the day on Valentines Day: Monday, February 14. The carnations were supplied by Amy Foster’s family flower shop, Jewel’s Flowers, which is located in Vincennes.

“We figured this way we could do a fundraiser, and it wouldn’t cost us (the Life Skills Program) anything, because I’m just going to donate the money to the class,” Foster said.

The idea of selling carnations came from Life Skills teacher Tiffany Absher.

“I come from Castle High School, and the Life Skills students were always selling something at the holidays, and we were looking for ways to raise money for our class,” she said. “Carnations seemed like a good idea.”

During the ten days of sales, Life Skills made more than $500. This money goes towards the program to help Life Skills students who have trouble affording outings and helps cover the general funds of the class.

“We have a fund set up for our classroom outings,“ Absher said. “Students who can’t afford those outings will use this money to fund theirs. As well as, … ‘play day’ for Holiday World every May, and this money will help fund that.”

Selling the carnations was not all about making money, this allowed the Life Skills students to interact with the rest of the school.

“I had a lot of fun selling the flowers to everyone in the cafeteria,” freshman Jacob Scheller said.