This Christmas season, students are being given the chance to help brighten a child’s holiday by donating Christmas presents to children in the Washtenaw County area. Eastern Michigan University’s VISION office is working with the Salvation Army to collect donated gifts from students.
The VISION office, located in room 346 of the Student Center, helps Eastern students find volunteer opportunities on campus. Work spent volunteering with VISION may count towards Learning Beyond the Classroom credit or work-study awards.
This holiday season, VISION is coordinating with the Salvation Army on presents students can donate to children. Tags with information about what gifts children want can be found hung on Christmas Wishing Trees located in the Student Center, Halle Library, Porter and Marshall. VISION currently has 300 tags hung on trees across campus. Wishing Trees are set up annually a week before Thanksgiving.
“Eastern is an amazingly generous community,” said Peggy Harless, assistant director of Diversity and Community Involvement. “Several years we’ve had to go back to the Salvation Army and ask for more tags.”
Tags are hung on each tree with descriptions of presents a child has asked for this Christmas. EMU students can choose a tag off a tree and buy the child’s present. Students who take a tag are required to indicate, on sign-up sheets located at the trees, what presents they have chosen to buy for which child. Presents will be distributed to the children on Dec. 20-21.
Some tags request more than one gift for a child. Students who accept tags asking for multiple toys are encouraged to buy what they can afford.
“If people can buy only one thing, it’s better than nothing,” Harless said.
Wishing Trees have also collected presents outside of Eastern’s campus.
The children who will be receiving the presents live across Washtenaw County, ranging in age from infancy to 16-years-old.
“The Salvation Army is hoping to supply over 600 needy families with assistance in Washtenaw County,” said James Hulett, administrator of the Ypsilanti Salvation Army Corps.
“As The Ypsilanti Salvation Army is part of the Greater Washtenaw County Salvation Army, much of these programs are coordinated out of the Ann Arbor
Office.”
“Apparently Sponge Bob is still in,” said Jasmina Camo, program coordinator of the VISION department. “The older kids seem to be interested in electronics.”
Wishing Trees, which go by a number of different names, are done by the Salvation Army nationwide, even in high schools.
“I think what’s really awesome is that we have a really big turnout,” Camo said.
The VISION office also has plans to bring back its annual human tree in which a student volunteer will dress up as a Christmas tree to help promote present donations.
