Lake Havasu High School student Amanda Watson’s day does not only involve keeping up with homework, studying and her grades, she also makes time to give back to her community.

Watson grew up in Lake Havasu City and attended Calvary Christian Academy and later transferred to Thunderbolt Middle School. Now as a senior at Lake Havasu High School, she serves as a Teachers Assistant at the Career Center.

Growing up, Watson remembers her mother instilling the importance of giving back to the community which has motivated her to do the same.

“My mom has always been involved in nonprofit events and always helping others, so my entire life I have always helped with those kinda things.“

In December, Watson organized “Operation Kindness,” an event aimed to help veterans, and the elderly over the holidays by hosting a canned food drive. In addition to the food drive, Watson gathered students at her high school and together, they made greeting cards for servicemen and women overseas to be later inserted in each care package that organizations around town were putting together around Christmas time.

submitted photo Amanda Watson

But her kindness did not stop there. She also wanted to bring some cheer to the elderly at local nursing homes for Christmas so she decided to wrap care packages for them as well along with assisting homeless veterans.

“We distributed 30 care packages for the homeless, we included warm items and sleeping bags in them.They also contained food items and games,” Watson said.

Last month, A student club from Interagency Council helped Watson deliver about 200 boxes for the nursing homes.

“I loved seeing all their happy faces when they got a present. The number one thing they said when they got the present was ‘Really? for me?’ with a big smile on their face.“

Watson says she doesn’t do it for any reason other than to make others feel happy, especially around the holidays.

“Everyone is always helping someone else and my main goal was to put a little kindness into someone’s Christmas last month,” said Watson.

“Operation Kindness wouldn’t have happened without everyone elses help. I plan to carry this out again next year.”