Dec. 7, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Stephan Lamb
(805) 756-6509
Alexis Smith
Student Community Services Office
(805) 756-5834
Cal Poly Students Collect Gifts for 600
Needy Local Children
in Annual Holiday Gift Drive
SAN LUIS OBISPO – Cal Poly students have collected nearly
$10,000 worth
of gifts for needy children and teen-agers as part of the annual
holiday
gift drive on campus. 
Nine students have volunteered their time since September to coordinate
the gift drive through the Student Community Services office at
Cal
Poly. The student volunteers work with local non-profit and social
service programs, which provide gift requests from needy local children
and teens. Students launched the annual holiday gift appeal in late
November, after receiving a record number of gift requests: 600.
“Over the past four years that I’ve been working on
this, we’ve gone
from 200 gifts to 600 gifts this year,” said fourth-year Political
Science student Dianne Hardcastle.
The requests come from children involved with Big Brothers/Big
Sisters,
the Housing Authority, the Family Care Network, the county Department
of
Social Services, and the EOC TAPP (teen parenting) program.
Student clubs, fraternities, sororities and general students on
campus
as well as and faculty and staff offices provide the gifts.
“They’re all great, but the College of Science and
Math is one of our
biggest donors – they’re fantastic,” said this
year’s gift drive
coordinator, third-year computer science student Alexis Ramirez.
Freshmen in the dorms also participate, either by going in together
and
buying gifts (price limit is $10 to $25 per gift) or sponsoring
candy
sales or other fund-raisers to buy gifts, Ramirez said.
The nine students coordinating the gift drive will spend this week
wrapping last-minute gift donations and delivering them to local
charities on Dec 11. Student Community Services is also sponsoring
a
party Tuesday night (Dec. 7) at from 6-8 p.m. at the Monday Club
in San
Luis Obispo for Big Brothers/Big Sisters, where gifts will be delivered
to participating children.
All of the students involved in the project said it’s well
worth the
hours they put in. “I am so fortunate to have what I have
and be here
for a college education. Just the fact that there are 600 children
right
here who are in need makes me think there is no reason we should
have
such need among such excess,” Hardcastle said. “Some
of these requests
are really humble – things like school supplies.”
Ramirez, this year’s coordinator, said she loves the holiday
gift drive.
“It’s a chance to get people involved and show them
that you don’t have
to spend a lot of money or time to make a difference. Buying a gift
for
a child for $10 to $25 – that’s like two people giving
up going to the
movies one night. It’s such an easy thing to do.”
Students involved in coordinating this year’s gift drive
are Ramirez,
Hardcastle, and Emily Becker, Kara Edwall, Josh Hardester, Daniel
Pronsolino, Harmony Quismundo-Newman, Daniel Rivoire and York Shingle.
Clubs and offices which were major donors to the drive include
Rotaract,
the Records Office, Human Resources, Delta Delta Delta, Campus Crusade,
The Establishment, College of Science and Mathematics Ambassadors,
the
College of Science and Mathematics, Chi Delta Theta, the biological
sciences department, and Alpha Gamma Rho.
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Editors please note: A photo of the students with gifts that
have been
donated is available; contact Teresa Hendrix at thendrix@calpoly.edu
to
receive a jpg via e-mail.