community How to Change-A-Life Written by: Meghan Samples The holidays are positioned at the peak of the giving season. Everyone is in a better mood with celebrations of all denominations coming up. This season is full of giving and gifting. While giving to family and friends is fun for all, giving to charity incites a feeling of goodwill. There are many wonderful charities to give to throughout the year and especially around the holidays. For some families, however, the holiday season is where the struggle to make ends meet collides with the want to provide children with holiday magic. Giving to charities helps these families with not only the necessities, but also with the spirit of the season. The Friend’s Club charity, The Change-A-Life Holiday Project, helps those families in need to still celebrate the holidays and give them peace of mind. Mrs. Wallace has worked in the school system for many years, and she has continually been involved in charities. She began at Cherokee High School, where this charity started. When she moved here to Creekview, she brought that loving and giving nature with her. She talks more about how the charity started: “The program, we named it Change-A-Life. We called it Change-A-Life because we started by putting out jars and placing them in different places around the community to collect change. We’ve done it every year since the school opened, and it’s grown because there are always more needs. It has sort of morphed from that and it transitioned into Friend’s club, so it just became a Friend’s club project. We divide them out, some other clubs like French club sponsors kids this year or a basketball or sports team might take on a kid.” The charity is a lot of fun for the students involved. Mrs. Wallace gave a play-by-play of how the charity unfolds, “We do the shopping trip. Once they have collected the money then each child is allotted so much money, we try to stick within a budget, and then they go and pick items off that list and purchase that. Then we come back here [to the school] and the week leading up to us getting out for break, we wrap everything, and we get everything labeled and then we deliver it to our feeder schools.” This helps the students to be included and involved in the process, rather than just giving money and never seeing the positive outcome. There are many branches of this charity. Students involved in the Friend’s Club ran a letter writing campaign. Wallace mentioned, “The kids raise the money, this year we are doing the letter writing campaign rather than sell something. Which makes it easier to get family and friends to invest in their student to go and do this project.” The letter writing program allows for students to get money from sponsors, such as family members or friends, and that money goes to the charity.
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They also have a way for faculty to get involved, “The faculty tree that we have, that’s faculty members buying individual items that way, at the end, it all goes, and we have a complete set of toys and clothing for every kid.” This year, the charity like many other things has had to change in order to keep up with the restrictions. However, Mrs. Wallace and the other advisors still find ways to make it fun. The students “get a first name, no personal information, and an age. Each list has sizes and styles a lot of times what the kids are wanting. So, they have to channel that child and pick out the best items” she said. The students work hard to buy what the kids in need really want. Mrs. Hopkins added that “they get to go and actively participate by shopping. They are given a list of these particular items that they have to go shop for” and the students get to go from there. The special needs students involved in the charity enjoy the work they do, Mrs. Wallace said that “It’s great for the kids because they are learning to give back.” One advisor, Mrs. Shotz, explained her favorite part: “I really enjoy the fact that kids who have so many needs themselves each year during the holidays raise money to shop for additional needy families and what an impact they have. They have such a great impact on the community as a whole.” By participating in this charity, they are learning to give to others and include everyone. The program is very impactful for everyone. One of the advisors got emotional talking about the parents getting to see their kids get what they want: “It is emotional, it is sweet, and it is a good lesson. I always say the lesson you learn from this is more important as any of the academic things you are going to learn in school. It is to care about people and share what you can, do what you can, to help and the best part is it all stays right in our community. That’s my favorite part.” Despite the deadline for donations having already passed, those interested can still add last minute donations. Mrs. Wallace explained, “There’s always a few last-minute gift cards. We can’t buy gift cards with school money because that could be done in a misleading way. So, there are things last minute but if someone wants to donate then yes, they can make a donation to the friend's club.” To that, Mrs. Hopkins added. “We could find a way. If a family needed a gas card or food card or something like that for their Christmas meal or Christmas breakfast.” This helps everyone to get involved and give back to the community. Little things can make such major impacts on people. Giving during the holidays can make a child’s day. By donating, you give a child the experience of waking up to gifts that they couldn’t have had otherwise. By helping these kids and their parents, you really do Change their Lives.
