'Tis the season for friends, family and a little holiday fun. While you're thinking about gift ideas for your loved ones, don't forget that this is a great time of year to give to others in the community too.
With all the cash you'll save from rushing the doors at Target or Walmart on Black Friday, why not give some of that dough to a student to go shopping for the holidays?
Asheville Middle School runs a program called, "Holiday Hats." This year, they hope to take 60-100 students in need holiday shopping. Holiday Hats is the AMS version of "Angel Tree." Instead of students or their families writing down gift ideas and other people shopping for them, the aim is to give middle schoolers the ability to shop for themselves and join in the holiday fun. Many students don't get the opportunity to go shopping for themselves, so this is a nice treat, especially at this time of year.
After the shopping days, AMS hosts a fun wrapping party where volunteers wrap all the gifts. The week before winter break, students' families come to school to pick-up the gifts. Want to help wrap gifts on 12/6? You can sign-up for that here.
So, you're probably wondering what you can do to make this happen...we're glad you asked.
We need donors and volunteers to support this great holiday program.
- Every $30 donation will allow us to take 1 student shopping. Every donation, no matter the size, will help us inch closer to our goal of helping make the holidays a bit brighter for our students and families!
- To donate online, please check out our GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/holiday-hats-at-asheville-middle
- Of course, checks are accepted too and can be made payable to Asheville Middle School, memo line: Holiday Hats. Please contact Kim Robinson or Kortney Conner for more information!
- Shopping Day Volunteers! We need 50 total chaperones to accompany students while they shop at Walmart on 12/3 and 12/5.
- But what will you actually do while shopping? Glad you asked! Volunteers will:
- meet the AMS bus at Walmart on Bleachery Blvd at 3:30pm
- sign-in
- get marching orders and a cheat sheet
- greet students, get matched with 2 students, go shopping with them
- have some fun
- help students ring up items through one line designated for Holiday Hats
- make sure they get on the bus (where they will receive a snack)
Between the registering, shopping, and taking students back to the bus, you can plan on spending 2 total hours of your holiday season doing good for a student in your community!
Respond to this opportunity to get added to the list of volunteers and/or donate via the ways mentioned above.
In all seriousness-thank you for helping support this program and the students at Asheville Middle School (Cougar Pride)!
