AWR's Holiday Cares Redefines Giving in Schools

During the holiday season there is so much focus on commercialism that finding occurrences of giving really do stand out.

There are few places this time of year where the spirit of giving is stronger than ever. One such place is , where students recently participated in Holiday Cares, a program where students and their families participate in charitable holiday giving.

“Instead of buying a holiday Chotzke for grandma and grandpa, we decided to give back to the community,” said Diane Rispoli, one of the chairpersons of the program. Other chairpersons on the committee were Tiffany Regan and Beth Gallagher.

The Holiday Cares program is now in its fourth year. In past years, students had an opportunity to buy small gifts for family members. Now the money that students and their parent provide goes to one of 25 charities that were selected with the help from students and parents.

“To prepare for the event, younger students were paired with older students, and after selecting a charity to represent, these buddy classes worked together to make a token gift with a card,” Rispoli said.

The students learned about their charity and about giving back to the community, and learned how to be responsible for a display table. This year, the sixth grade class was instrumental in organizing the event.

In the gym, 15 tables were set up, each bearing an art board with the name of the charity and some of its focus. Gift bags that fellow students made were displayed on the tables, which students purchased. The money from these purchases goes directly to the chosen charity, in their honor.

“These meaningful gifts teach the art of giving beyond traditional gift items, and the whole experience is a way for children to working teams,” Rispoli said. “They gain a better understanding of the many types of programs that exist to make the world a better place.”

One of the ways in which they make their environment a better place is right at the school. Principal Gina Hanson, who is in her first year as principal of Roberts, began a focus this year on character education.

“We had an existing program, [which focused on] putting responsibility into daily events,” Hansen said. “We polled the faculty and we polled the students in June and found that we needed to work on teamwork — manners and kindness. So with Holiday Cares, we try to make a smart community by buddying up students. With our charities here we tried to find local, global and national representation. All it takes is one person to make a difference in our community.”

It all seemed to work quite well. Teacher Leslie Ditta said that students were excited to work with buddy classes, to work on the boards and learn more about the charities. 

“Yesterday, we learned about what the different charities do and students got to apply for a job for the day,” Ditta said. “They really stepped up to that.”

The 15 recipient charities were: , , St. Barnabus Burn Foundation, Monarch Watch, St. Hubert’s Animal Shelter, Peace Corp Program, Great Swamp Wildlife Refuge, Children’s Specialized Hospital, Community Foodbank of New Jersey, New Eyes for the Needy, From Houses to Homes, Morristown Seeing Eye, The Seeing Eye, Inc., GI Ticket Foundation, Employment Horizons and .