From 4:30-6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 8, the Student Activities Council (SAC) hosted fifty-five sponsored kids from the Carl Perkins Center for a celebratory event known as Carl Perkins Christmas.
“Carl Perkins is an organization in Jackson that helps provide therapies and other resources to children who have been abused,” junior psychology major, SAC member and chair of the event Abbey Blake said. “We have an opportunity to invest in these kids emotionally but also spiritually.”
For this event to be possible, many different groups and organizations needed to come together to raise money for each of the kids. Once they had the funds necessary, the students went shopping with a wish list geared toward their child’s specific wants and needs. Then, they wrapped those gifts and dropped them off at the Bowld gym for the child to open with the students later.
College students are not known to have extra money to spend, but every year, hundreds of dollars are donated by the student body for these efforts.
“This opportunity came to me, and, I was like, this is something that I can easily give to without any sort of second-guessing cause I know where it’s going; I know what it’s doing, in some semblance,” Meghan Littrell, a sophomore social work major and one of the children’s sponsors said. “I believe in being able to give to people who don’t have, who don’t get to experience things the same way.”
When the kids arrived, they were greeted by some of their sponsors and taken into the Brewer Dining Hall for a time of fellowship, including a meal and cookie decorating. From there, everyone went into the Bowld gym, and the kids were able to open their gifts, play games, hear the story of Jesus’ birth and see Santa.
“They were incredibly thrilled and thankful about the simplest things we wouldn’t think of as a Christmas gift, such as toothbrushes and toothpaste,” Freshman art therapy major and SAC member Joelle Cruver said.
As the event came to an end, the sponsors walked their child, along with a bag of their new gifts, back to the buses to say their goodbyes.
“We were able to show them the love of Christ and the love Christ has for each one of them individually, helping remind them, as well as ourselves, of the true meaning behind Christmas,” Cruver said.