Lamar School students lined the sidewalk Tuesday to wave and cheer as Stefanie Roman, a beloved middle school secretary currently undergoing cancer treatment, made a drive through campus as part of the school’s Day of Love initiative.

Roman, who kept to her vehicle, appeared overwhelmed by the students’ outpouring of love.

In honor of Roman, Lamar eighth-graders have raised more than $2,000 as their Day of Love project this year to donate to Anderson Regional Cancer Center’s patient benevolence fund.

“This was their undertaking and they have done such a great job,” Lamar Middle School Principal Linda Dulaney said of the eighth-graders.

The students have been selling bracelets that are imprinted with a heart, “Stefanie Strong” and the Bible verse 1 Thessalonians 5:11, said eighth-grader Logan Cross.

They began setting up in the cafeteria during middle school and high school breaks early this month to sell the bracelets and to accept donations, added student Sophia Turner.

Cross, Turner and fellow eighth-grader Sally Rush were selling the bracelets to high schoolers during break on Tuesday. Students dropped by their table eager to purchase a bracelet even if they were already wearing one.

Computer apps teacher Mia Pollman, who is the eighth-grade sponsor, said the students have sold nearly 500 bracelets and are about halfway to their $4,000 goal.

Dulaney said Pollman has worked very hard to make the project an effort by the students.

“They are over there at break every day. They’ve got spreadsheets. This has truly been their work,” she said. “She has tried very hard to keep this as something that the kids are actually doing and not we are doing for them.”

The eighth-graders’ efforts are part of the middle school’s annual Day of Love project, which is slated for Friday and is a day aimed at making students more community minded.

“This began five years ago with the desire of our teachers to help our students understand and see that even at a young age they can make an impact in the world around them. They can do good for others,” Dulaney said.

The benevolence fund project touched close to home for the students, but Dulaney is not surprised students want to honor Roman.

“She has done what I’ve asked my staff to do and that is to intentionally invest yourself in these children,” Dulaney said of Roman “She has done that, and I think this is why their response to this project is so great because they know she loves them. They know she has served them. Every one of them can name something that she has personally done for them.”

In other Day of Love projects at the middle school, seventh graders have worked on two projects. One group is collecting supplies for the animal shelter.

“They collect items that an animal shelter will need anything from kitty litter to food to puppy pads, chew toys, soaps and bleaches to do the cleaning,” Dulaney said.

Those students will deliver the items to the Lauderdale County Animal Shelter and also do a little hands-on work at the shelter while there, she added.

Another group of seventh graders partnered with some Lamar juniors to collect items for care bags to deliver to ICU waiting rooms at local hospitals.

“These are items that families who have long stays in ICU waiting rooms might need,” Dulaney said, “anything from breath mints to small toothbrush and toothpaste, snacks, personal wipes, and those sorts of things.”

For their Day of Love project, Lamar sixth-graders collected food supplies to make “blessing bags” in partnership with Central United Methodist Church. Various local churches work with Meridian Public Schools to hand out the bags to students who have the need.

“For students who live in situations where their hunger needs may not be met over the weekend or over a long school holiday, this project actually gives them a bag of food that doesn’t require cooking,” Dulaney said. “It is something they can readily eat and access on their own.”

Dulaney said the school’s Day of Love is a good way to challenge students to look around their community to see the needs and what service projects could benefit from their assistance.

“That’s not something that students in middle school routinely do is pick up on what the needs in my community are,” she said. “They are rather self centered and self focused by nature and that is just the developmental stage of the child. So, this gives them the opportunity to look outside themselves and to be part of a bigger initiative which is really good for them.”