A toy drive to serve the common good
As the holiday season approaches, the idea of presents has been on many people’s minds. Gift-giving is a holiday tradition that has been carried out for centuries, with a tenure so long that it might be taken for granted. However, Jaimee Curtis, a Viterbo sophomore, is on a mission to remind the Viterbo community of how important a gift can be—and for children, toys are most often the objects that make the holiday season so bright.
On the academic level, Curtis has started her own toy drive to fulfill the requirements for her VUSM-300 class, Serving the Common Good. Many of the 30 hours of community service required by her instructor will be spent planning the logistics, reaching out to community organizations, making the boxes for the five drop-off locations on campus, and, eventually, collecting and delivering the toys to the Family & Children’s Center and the La Crosse County Human Services Department. These organizations will ensure that the donated toys are given to children in the La Crosse area.
When considering Curtis’ own life and career aspirations, the gifts she hopes to bring to the area’s children take on an even greater meaning. She herself has experienced the joy of receiving presents on Christmas morning during hard times for her family.
Some of the gifts Curtis remembers the most were donated by kind strangers. Looking back, she reflects, “My family wasn’t very well off, so Christmas was hard on my parents. One year, they got donations from the county [so we could have] things to open up on Christmas.” In this way, the mission of her drive is truly to pay it forward—to continue the cycle of giving that brought her so much joy all those years ago. Considering that she wants to be an English teacher, her cause also lines with her future career path. She remarks, “Giving back to children is my passion, and working with children is one of my passions.”
The passion she has for children is one shared by many parents who wait all year for the priceless moment of watching their child open that perfect gift, the light in their eyes and the grin on their face creating enough joy to last all year. It can thus be said that the cycle of giving that Curtis wishes to enhance with her toy drive is also a cycle of love—love that is felt by the giver and the receiver. Adults know how much a gift costs, where it was bought, and what it is made of, but children, in their innocence, only see the joy that comes from the gift. It is one of the purest expressions of love between a parent and child, or any two people.
Curtis’ education professor reportedly told her, “Take your passion and hone it to what you want to do to serve the community.” This student is doing just that, and hopes that other residents of the La Crosse area will do the same. She is looking ahead to repeating the drive again in future years and getting more students involved while also serving the needs of more children, further growing her contribution to the cycle of giving.
Folks in and around the Viterbo community can make their contributions to Curtis’ cycle of giving from now until Dec. 9 by bringing their new or gently-used books, clothes, or toys (un-wrapped) to the red collection boxes located in the Fine Arts Center lobby, the Murphy Center lobby, the Nursing building, the Reinhart Center, and the university library.