Students, faculty and staff make a mountain out of call for youth support
For the people in the Student Life office at Kirkwood Community College, the biggest challenge for the week before Thanksgiving was “keeping the trees covered.”
The trees in question were the now-traditional Angel Trees from Tanager Place of Cedar Rapids. The local non-profit agency cares for hundreds of at-risk and other children each year, many of whom come from challenging or non-existent home environments. For several years Kirkwood has hosted Angel Tree displays and encouraged students and staff to pick a card describing a child and their “wish list” of holiday gift desires.
Student Life staff were assisted by Kirkwood Student Senate and others in keeping the trees trimmed with children’s wishes, then gathering presents for safekeeping in their Iowa Hall offices on the main campus. On the afternoon of Dec. 4, the mound of accumulated gifts rapidly filled a nearby conference room.
Student Life Office Associate Mary Huffman calls the late 2008 response” overwhelming” in support of the children.
“This is amazing, just so beautiful to see how quickly people shared of themselves for these kids. We put out 350 Angel Tree tags a few weeks ago and could tell the first day they were being picked up very quickly. We had people going from building to building, hoping there were even a few tags left. In all the years we have hosted these trees, this is the most lovely outpouring we’ve seen in many years,” Huffman said.
Student Life Director Seth Vander Tuig also observed that many faculty and staff took the Angel Tree project as their “office mission” for the season, buying gifts as a group project.
“We went through these tags in just a few days. That was 350 of them. Tanager people brought us another batch of 25 extras…and POW, they were out in minutes,” Vander Tuig said with a snap of his finger. “This just shows the generosity and caring of this college. It’s wonderful to witness.”
The Student Life crew expects the final gift deliveries to come in by Monday, Dec. 8 when Tanager agency staff will accept the presents for Holiday delivery.