There are forty-five staff members, 105 teachers and 2,314 students at MVHS, and those 2,464 people all carry thousands of items. As they pack up their bags, a pencil falls out and is concealed under the desk. As they leave for sixth period, they forget the water bottle that fell and rolled away. As they walk up the stairs, their iPhone falls out of their back pocket.

Sweatshirts, umbrellas, pencils, lunch bags, water bottles, hats, swimming bags, notebooks, hair clips and much more overflow the small file cabinet in the school office. These are the lost items of MVHS.

Of the many items that are stored in the lost and found, Secretary of the Assistant Principal Deb Mandac, estimates that about 50 percent are found. The rest of the random odds and ends end up in the lost and found cabinet after teachers, janitors or students come to the office to drop them off. Valuable items such as phones are kept in a locked drawer until the owner comes to claim it.

The items fill up the cabinet very quickly as Mandac must donate them almost 3 to 4 times a year. “We donate the items; I’ve taken it to Goodwill, I’ve taken it to Hope. We also have a retired teacher who sometimes comes and takes the items to a [Native American] reservation. So we have various companies or venues to take care of the lost and found items,” Mandac said.