Hurricane Harvey caused billions of dollars in damage, record rainfall, and immense flood heights in Houston and surrounding cities and areas. Clear Springs High School was no exception with many teachers, students, and families displaced and still recovering from the aftermath.

Many students helped volunteer and rebuild the community, lending a hand to their friends and neighbors with house cleanup, sheet rock demolition, and other needs. One student felt there was more to be done, specifically, for the teachers and staff at Clear Springs.

“Teachers can’t just take days off to fix their houses because they stay here with us,” Kyle Benacquisto (12) said. “They’re the ones who are going to need the most help after this.”

Benacquisto, senior class president, called Mrs. Candice Thibodeaux, senior class sponsor, letting her know of his adamancy on donating to the teachers as well as staff members at Springs. She, with the help of principal Mrs. Gail Love’s staff survey, gathered a list of who was affected by the storm.

Although his original intent was to fundraise as senior class officers, that wasn’t possible. On-campus fundraisers are set before school starts, so as for the Senior Class, a special fundraiser wasn’t an option. Additionally, there was CCISD district-wide relief available to all teachers.

“We couldn’t do this as a group, but Kyle could do anything he wants to,” Thibodeaux said.

What he eventually did came as a surprise even to Mrs. Thibodeaux. “Most kids wouldn’t take the initiative,” she said, assuming that the fundraising topic was dropped.

However, taking Mrs. Thibodeaux’s words to heart, Kyle immediately got together with his dad on a way to donate money for the Clear Springs’ staff to aid their Harvey needs. It was when working in Ms. Jennifer Moss’s house, one of Benacquisto’s Spanish teachers at Springs, when Kyle told his dad of his intentions. They eventually came to the idea of making t-shirts, hoping they’d raise some money from selling them.

“It’s touching because you have like 150 kids, and you don’t know how you affect them,” Moss said. “When you talk to Kyle, you just know he’s a good person. I think if you talked to anyone–teachers, APs, even students–they’d say the same thing. He’s just genuine.”

He raised $4,000 just with the t-shirt campaign. They ended up receiving about $7,500, plus hundreds of dollars in gift cards donated with the additional fundraising efforts from teachers Mrs. Liz Snow, Mrs. Karen DePaul, Ms. Katherine Pozuc and Thibodeaux and her husband Mike. Thanks to Kyle, almost $400 in Visa gift cards were given to each of the 20 staff members affected by the hurricane and flooding. Each teacher also received a gift card for gas, Home Depot, or other various stores that could help suit their individual needs.

Kyle and his family moved during early summer 2017 from the neighborhood, The Park, off FM 518–a neighborhood completely devastated after the hurricane, reaching flood heights of several feet. This was the first neighborhood he helped work, a neighborhood where Moss and other teachers lived, and to see the damage Kyle’s friends and old neighbors went through took a toll on him. “It was the first time I allowed myself to cry since the hurricane happened,” Benacquisto said.

It’s almost Thanksgiving now, Hurricane Harvey ending back in September. However, Benacquisto still felt that now is a crucial time to give back to the members of Clear Springs High School, which he calls family. “These times now, where people start to forget about Harvey, are going to be the worst for people devastated by it,” Benacquisto said.

When he realized the limits in helping fundraise as a group, Kyle Benacquisto found his own way to give back to his community. He served as a reminder of hope for many struggling with the aftermath of Harvey through his efforts in restoring our beautiful community back together. He is not only an upstanding senior class president; he embodies Clear Creek Independent School District’s core values of citizenship, caring, responsibility and respect.

Harvey has ended, but it’s not over. Anyone wishing to get involved in restoration and rebuilding efforts are still welcomed. Go to ccisdcares.org.