Chapter Spotlight: Walnut Grove FCCLA's "Share Your Christmas"

This post submitted by Debra Price, Chapter Advisor and FCS Teacher, Walnut Grove High School. To see more about what Walnut Grove FCCLA does throughout the year, check out their blog.

Have you ever planned a project and had more of a response than you ever thought possible? That’s what happened last month for the Walnut Grove FCCLA Chapter. Our FCCLA chapter sponsored the first annual Share Your Christmas Food Drive for students in preschool through grade 12. When students started planning, they never imagined how involved people would get.

After 7 days of collecting foods, the chapter ended up with more than 4200 items to put together food baskets for local families. The fifth grade and senior classes were the winners of the pizza party reward for bringing in the most items.

The collection didn’t end there. While the food was being counted and sorted, students went door to door and picked up community donations of food items. This collection brought in another 600 items to our food drive. On Friday, FCCLA members sorted the canned and boxed food into 31 families that are being helped by the Share Your Christmas program from the Walnut Grove community.

The second part of this project involved a Change Day. The Change Day is a more than 20 year tradition in Walnut Grove. Students bring in unrolled change for teachers to roll and count. As long as the teachers have money to count, the students can watch movies and play games. This year Change Day raised $2440. This money is used to purchase gifts for the 76 children involved in our Share Your Christmas project. Members helped roll change all day to help teachers on what seemed like a never-ending pile of change.

The Masonic Lodge and Wal-Mart donated another $5000 to be used for clothing, shoes, and coats for the children. Last week our chapter officers and 10 elementary teachers and students went shopping to buy gifts and clothing for the 76 children in our community. Groups were given names, sizes, and gift requests to shop for the children. All of this information is compiled by the elementary principal to ensure confidentiality. It was an awesome experience for our entire chapter. By partnering with the groups in our community we are able to ensure that 76 children and teens in our community will have not only a bright Christmas but also food to fill their cabinets.