Spreading Holiday Cheer
Merry Christmas from Galena’s NHS and FFA. Chance Wills ‘20, Conner Einsweiller ‘19, Sophia Heisler ‘19, Lizzy Eaton ‘20, Samantha Stoffregen ‘19, Kenzie Casper ‘20, Evelyn Larson ‘19, Shea Curran ‘19, Sawyer Quick ‘19, and Abby Moyer ‘19 gather around the tree they created for Christmas gift donations. GHS students took a tag off the tree, and brought in whatever gift was on the tag, then placed their donated gift under the tree for a local family. “Helping out families in our community is one of my favorite things we do,” said Casper. “It is awesome to see all the gifts that students bring in to donate, it makes me so happy!”
During the Holidays, it is an especially hard time for families in need. The Galena High School National Honor Society and Future Farmers of America realized this need.
During the month of December they raised money and brought gifts for The Giving Tree. The Giving Tree, an annual tradition, is way for people around the school to help spread holiday cheer by making sure that everyone can have presents during the holidays.
The two groups worked together and were able to help two families in our community have gifts under their tree on Christmas morning.
In order to achieve this goal the members of GHS had to help.
There was a tree in the library throughout the month of December. On this tree were gift tags with half of the gift requested by the families. Students were asked to grab a tag from the tree. Once they picked a tag they had to buy and wrap the gift that was listed on the tag. They would then place the gift back under the tree with the tag attached, and it would be delivered to the family before the holidays.
Still, not all of the presents had been donated by the end of the first semester. That’s where the NHS and the FFA came in.
“At the end of the month there was still a few tags left on the tree,” said Sophia Heisler ‘19. “The members of NHS went out on the 21st and bought all the remaining gifts with the proceeds from Frosty Frolic.”
“It was a lot of fun going shopping for the gifts. After we got done at the store we had a wrapping party and wrapped everything that was bought,” said Sawyer Quick ‘19. The NHS spent the afternoon wrapping the gifts they bought as well as the gifts bought by FFA.
In order to buy the other half of the gifts, the FFA had to raise money. They hosted a dinner at the Elk’s on December 17th. The dinner was well attended, with many people showing up to support the community. “We worked hard and had a lot of fun at the dinner. We raised enough money to buy the rest of the gifts,” said Kenzie Casper ‘20.
The NHS then organized the presents and made sure that they were wrapped nicely before distributing them to the families.
“Once all the gifts had been purchased, NHS had a wrapping party to wrap all of the gifts that had been bought,” said Samantha Stoffregren. “Then we split into two groups and delivered the gifts to two families.”
“It was such a awesome experience to be able to bring so much joy to two families in our community,” said Shea Curran ‘19.
