Santa's Helpers and Easter Allies

 

Santa's Helpers was designed to help underprivileged families in the Spokane Community in celebration of the Holiday Season.  In the past, the families have come from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Outreach Center.

 

This program helps the families by raising donations such as gift certificates, clothes, household items, etc.  These donations come from a wide variety of places, but the main source of the donations come from Gonzaga Students.  The participating residence halls have 1 or 2 families assigned to them, and their goal is to try to raise the most goods for their families. This program usually serves 20-25 local families and has about 15-20 dorms participating.

Recognizing that such charitable giving shouldn't be limited to just the Holiday season, Easter Allies was created to help the underprivileged families in the Spokane Community in celebration of Easter and the Spring Season!  In the past, these families have been selected from Spokane Parents Overcoming Challenges and St. Margaret's Women's Shelter.

The spring program usually adopts anywhere from 10-12 families.  SSC helps the families by collecting gift certificates, spring-time clothes, household items, and many more things.  The donations come from Gonzaga Students and the residence halls of GU.  Each residence hall is assigned 1-2 families, and their goal for the Spring Semester is to collect presents for their families.  It's a great way to help those around us!

 Volunteer Opportunities:

Volunteers for both Santa's Helpers and Easter Allies will act like a liaison between the coordinators and the residence halls and also help with fundraising efforts.  Money raised from any fundraising will go to buy the families extra goods that the residence halls might not have been able to provide. 

Time Commitment:  The wintertime project starts around the end of September-beginning of October and ends before finals week.  Hours are flexible, only about 1-2 hours a week at your own discretion.   For the springtime crew, the project starts mid-February and ends the Thursday before Easter.

If you are interested in participating with Santa's Helpers or Easter Allies contact Jasmine Hernandez at jhernandez@gonzaga.edu or McCall Haught-Frazier at thaught-frazier@gonzaga.edu or CCASL at 313-6824 or ext. 6824.