BI Word
VOLUME I, ISSUE 3
JANUARY, 2021
The Adopt-A-Family Project Was a Success!
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By Fiona Fedorochko
is’ the season to be giving! This Christmas season, Bishop Ireton continued the annual Adopt-A-Family project to give back to low-income families who cannot afford to have many presents on Christmas day. The Adopt-A-Family is an annual charity project that Bishop Ireton has been part of for many years focusing on the importance of giving back to others especially during the holiday season. Adopt-A-Family is a community partnership with Community Lodgings which works to end homelessness. Community Lodgings provides after school and tutoring programs and students involved in these programs create Christmas wish lists choosing a few items for themselves and a gift for a family member. Community Lodgings passes the lists over to Bishop Ireton and each advisory is assigned one student per list. Once the lists are distributed to the advisories, they review the list and each advisee selects one gift they would like to purchase. The Adopt-A-Family project is a group effort so each advisor and advisees, remote or in-person are involved. Typically, the upperclassmen in the advisories will take lead and organize the project within their group. Junior Stella Hermann is in Ms. Steg’s advisory and her advisory brought in kitchenware, shin guards, gloves, a blanket, and many more gifts for their assigned family. All advisories brought their gifts in during the week of December 7th. The gifts are placed in the resource center and then are passed on to Community Lodgings. In a normal school year, Ireton community members would volunteer to wrap the gifts up but with the coronavirus restrictions, the
gifts will not be wrapped. However, they are still sorted, labeled, and wish lists are checked once, sometimes twice! Mrs. Jordan and her team of teachers load up the gifts in a bus and drop it off at Community Lodgings. Once the gifts arrive there, Community Lodgings calls the parents and the students come in to pick up their presents. Gwen Spitzhoff, from Community Lodgings, says “Gift distribution day is one of my favorite days of the year because the families are so grateful and kids are excited, too.” Ireton places a heavy emphasis on giving back to the community and the Adopt-A-Family project is a perfect way to give a family a joyful Christmas as well as provide some of the necessities they need this winter. “The BI community is blessed with students who are generous, caring and interested in helping other people. This is one way to unify our efforts to make a huge impact on a community in need,” Mrs. Jordan, Assistant Vice Principal of Student Life, says. It is imperative that we spread the Christmas cheer and help others this winter!