The links come one after the other.

Cindy Miller had trouble counting, but in all, the Knappa High School teacher said 7,440 colored-paper loops form the festive chains strung throughout Knappa High School’s halls. At 25 cents each, they represent $1,860 given to Hospice.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Lower Columbia Hospice Director Brenda Penner said at an assembly Tuesday, voicing appreciation to students for donating money to the organization a second year in a row.

“It does help people here in Clatsop County, and it helps to support our Hospice House,” an adult foster home operated by the program for terminally ill patients and their families.

The donation was part of a three-pronged effort to help low-income residents of the community during the school’s “Charity Month” in December, Miller said.

In addition to the Hospice donation, students presented more than 200 toys to the county Women’s Resource Center and four turkeys, 300 pounds of potatoes and more than 700 cans and boxes of food to the Knappa Food Pantry Tuesday. Teddy bears, tuna, cereal, gravy and Chef Boyardee were among the items piled on the gymnasium floor beneath a lighted Christmas tree. The students even helped load the goods into the organizations’ cars.

“Seeing the number of people it took to get that stuff out there shows how much you opened up your hearts to the community,” Miller told the teens when the food was hauled out for the local food pantry, which provides an average 40 Knappa families with emergency boxes of food each month.

Students in the leadership class researched charities, brainstormed a list and narrowed it down to three choices. Miller said rather than donating to national or global groups, they decided to keep their efforts a little closer to home.

“We wanted it to stay local,” she said. “And they thought it would be nice if it was something that touched families in our community.”

Beginning Dec. 1, students competed by grade level to collect food and toys. With nearly $700, sophomores brought in the most money (competition between the sophomore and seniors classes was “fierce,” Miller said).

Because they trounced their $1,000 Hospice goal, students were rewarded with movies, a free sandwich lunch and the charity assembly on the last day before winter break, said student body president Shane Hall.

It kept the school in the spirit of giving.

“I think Hospice especially has helped so many people in the community,” Hall said. “We should do something to help them back.”