High school students have been struggling to find service opportunities as a result of the pandemic, but one Winter Springs High School teacher found a way for his students not only to get meet their service requirement, but also to make a global impact.

Winter Springs High School, home of the Bears, donned in purple and gold, became the birth place of a service project aimed at giving students a golden opportunity.

“The goal was to see if we could find service opportunities even now – that even during COVID, we could come together, network, collaborate with each other in order to do some good in the world," International Baccalaureate (IB) teacher Dr. Sean Loomis.

Loomis says service opportunities have been scarce ever since the pandemic set in, so he launched a sock drive and hit the ground running.

“It was a simple way that they could share information, raise money, and make a difference," Loomis explained

While the socks are meant to cover the feet of those in need, the money raised from their sales ended up covering the cost of – legs.

A young girl in Ghana and a young boy in India both now have prosthetics thanks to the service-minded students at Winter Springs High School.

“When I found out that it was an opportunity to help a young boy and a young girl, it was just again a win-win for everybody – that we were able to make an impact, and again our kids see the impact of that as well," Principal Pete Gaffney said.

“To be able to make an impact in a kid’s life – for something as simple as us just sharing word about selling some socks, we’re able to get … we have two kids who can walk today who couldn’t walk yesterday," Loomis said.

Now, Winter Springs High School has a brand new service tradition, and all the Bears involved have a whole lot of reasons to be proud.​

The students sold about 70 pairs of socks and raised hundreds of dollars toward those prosthetic legs.