SARASOTA, Fla. — The spirit of giving is synonymous with the holiday season and one Tampa Bay area nonprofit program is helping to put gifts in the hands of students for their loved ones.
With the help of volunteers, school officials are creating a winter wonderland filled with gifts as part of the Holiday House SRQ initiative.
"First you come in and then they send you down, they give you bags and then you color them," said Ashley, a 5th grade student at Emma Booker Elementary School.
The Holiday House SRQ initiative is in three Sarasota schools; Wilkinson Elementary, Emma Booker Elementary and Alta Vista Elementary.
When the Holiday House at each school is fully set up in a repurposed and redecorated classroom, each student would bring a shopping list with pre-selected names and then select and wrap five gifts of family, friends or even a pet which they would take back home with them.
Volunteers worked to bring items into Booker Elementary including gifts and decorations to begin the set up.
Last year, Ashley, who is now 10 years old, got to pick out several items for her family and her pet cat named Luna.
"They were happy with the presents that I gave them. They were all surprised that I could find all those things," Ashley said.
Over at Wilkinson Elementary, their Holiday House has already started to take shape ahead of a shopping day with several Christmas trees and boxes of toys, gadgets, household items and useful nick-nacks.
"Knowing that there's just such generosity in our community that allows this door to be open for our students that may not have been open otherwise is a very powerful experience for all of us," said Susan Nations, principal of Wilkinson Elementary School.
"As an educator, it gives me goosebumps. When they walk in and they see all the stuff, the look on their face is priceless," said Yolanda Cadet, a teacher at Emma Booker Elementary School.
Organizers of Holiday House SRQ said they also identify the children's other needs.
"It's a very intentional and methodical way so that they can really soak in the experience," said Sepi Ackerman, who works with Holiday House SRQ. "For these students, it's so much more than the day off, sometimes it's the lasting effect that they actually get to get something they actually really need outside the one day of holiday magic."
More than 1,700 students stand to benefit from the initiative which has received monetary donations from across the community to procure the gifts items for the children.
"It makes me feel happy again," Ashley added.
The Holiday House SRQ initiative has initially set its focus on schools without a parent-teacher organization that would normally set up such projects. The group has also provided more than 500 pairs of new sneakers for students and paid more than $1,000 in overdue library fees to enable students to continue checking out and reading books. They are also accepting donations all year round to help expand the program to at least one new school every other year.