UWT Helps the Community This Holiday Season Through Gift Donations

UWT is running, for the third year, a holiday donation event for students that might be go­ing through a difficult time during this year’s holiday season. In its third year, the re-named Holiday Gift Drive: UWT and YMCA Give is running its program as a way for students to help other students November 9th through December 14th.

The university is doing its best to take some of the unneeded holiday stress off students with children as the quarter comes to a close. UWT Gives, who is partnered with the University Y Student Center this year, is calling for students to help their fellow Huskies by donating to current UWT families in need, building the campus commu­nity, one gift at a time.

“As a partner they [University Y Student Center] will be helping with advertising, and hosting the giving drive sign up and donation drop off in the University Y Student Center. Ad­ditionally, they will be placing tags on trees and holiday décor asking to sup­port other students and community members beyond our UWT campus as well from: McCarver Elementary, Baker Middle School and First Creek. It was and is of critical importance to us that students, faculty and staff know that we are there to support our UWT families and our community together.” says Civic Engagement Specialist, Paul Provic.

“It brings a sense of community, it’s for the students, and more important­ly, it’s for the students’ families,” says Center of Service and Leadership Local Event Coordinator, Katie Kennedy.

The Center for Service and Leader­ship is partnering with the University Y Student Center in hopes of raising “holiday spirit” around campus. “Get­ting people connected is our number one goal,” says Kennedy. Student En­gagement will be also be hosting a gift wrapping event, free of charge during the final week of classes before finals week.

Advertisements for this event will be posted throughout campus. Both the staff and student body are encour­aged to participate in the donation.

There is no limit to the cost of pres­ents, as the cost of the gifts will vary from donor to donor. “Last year we received over 100 gifts that were all distributed to families at UWT,” says Provic.

Gifts will be given to UWT student parents who meet certain criteria: they must be a current UWT student, be taking a minimum of six credits, and have a family with one or more chil­dren. If a student meets these requirements, they are advised to fill out an application through Student Engagement.

Student Engagement is currently handling the process of choosing stu­dents who meet the eligibility require­ments. According to Kennedy, tags will be made for the students’ families and will be placed on a “Giving Tree,” which as-of-yet will be at an undetermined location on campus. Students will then be able to pick tags from the tree and purchase gifts accordingly.

“Students will be able to pull a snow­flake from a holiday tree or any of our other decorative props. Each snowflake or tag will have the age, gender, and gift wish on it (including sizes or other de­tails if it is clothing),” says Provic.

The donation center, where students drop off and pick up their gifts will be in the Mattress Factory, in room 107 (MAT 107). “I have done it for the last two years,” says Kennedy, “I just dropped [my present] off in the office [MAT 107] there seemed to be a lot of donations. It was nice to see.”