Throughout the community of Greenwood, there are many children who go through the holiday season without any gifts or celebrations. The Greenwood Fire Department and GHS students are looking for a way to combat this issue.
“There are so many kids who go without every holiday season. If we can help them in any sort of way, we should,” Mrs. Lindsey Glaze, athletic secretary, said.
Tomorrow, the annual GHS craft fair will be held throughout the building. This fundraiser will bring out roughly 2,000 community members who can help with the toy drive.
“We have partnered with the Greenwood Fire Department; they host an annual toy drive. What we are going to do is be a collection site for them. With our larger audience, we are hoping to get a good amount of toys for the fire department and the kids of Greenwood. We wanted to take the fundraiser and do something for the community itself,” Mrs. Glaze said.
The fire department began this toy drive in 1997 and then partnered with the Greenwood school system in 2013.
“We have a partnership with the four Greenwood elementary schools, where the counselor recognizes families that have children who need help with Christmas. They identify them and then we bring the donated toys to the schools the week before Christmas break, and the schools distribute them accordingly,” Mr. Bob Anderson, Greenwood Fire Department Chaplain, said.
Although the craft fair will have a multitude of vendors for shoppers, the opportunity to donate will be available.
“Any donation would be great. I’ve worked with the fire department before. They have had some collection sites have 10 toys; some give them 50 plus. They are glad for all donations, so anything at all would be appreciated. All of the toys will stick to Greenwood children. So it will just be to benefit our own community,” Mrs. Glaze said.
Toys should be new and unwrapped. Any toy for ages newborn to 16 years old is fine as long as it is not affiliated with weaponry. No Nerf guns, toy swords, etc.
“You can either donate here in the athletic office, or you can come to the craft fair, which is our big collection day,” Mrs. Glaze said.
Another approaching opportunity to donate this holiday season is the cereal and canned food drive, which will be held in December.
“The canned food drive is for us as a community to collect food to support the Greenwood community for the Good Cheer Fund. GHS will collect canned foods across our high school, but the district collects food as a whole. Anyone can donate to the canned food drive. You can donate any canned foods, but we are also going to ask for boxes of cereal too,” Mrs. Samantha Young, Student Services advisor, said.
The Student Athletic Advisory Committee is hosting collection sites at different varsity sports events during the month of December.
“The committee is going to help out by collecting canned goods at some varsity games this winter and then collecting them into baskets for them to be able to pick up and distribute to families in need,” Mrs. Andrea Campbell, SAAC sponsor, said.
Seniors Jenna Martin and Natalia Orozco are organizing the collection of cereal boxes to add onto the canned food drive.
“We are going to have boxes around the school where you can put the cereal around the school along with advertisements with information about what to donate,” Martin said.
The seniors have a goal of collecting 1,000 cereal boxes during the month of December.
“We are accepting any kind of cereal. Our goal is 1,000 boxes. It would be hard for just the school to reach that, but we are hoping that with the other organizations that we team up with we can reach it,” Orozco said.
As the holiday season quickly approaches, be sure to be a part of either of these opportunities to help out the Greenwood community.
“Sometimes, it makes people feel good to donate. Obviously, it’s for a good cause, so I would encourage anyone to donate because there are families who really need the assistance during this time of the year,” Mrs. Young said.
