As the holiday season nears, the gift of giving does as well. Santa to a Senior is a non-profit organization meant to support the elderly by giving them an opportunity to receive gifts via a wish list they create.
Senior Ava Crocker is an active member of the organization as the daughter of the head organizer, Mellisa Sayer. Crocker gives insight on her viewpoint of the organization.
“The purpose of Santa To Senior is to help senior citizens who don’t get to see their family or don’t have any family around. They get to make wish lists and people sign up to buy those items for them,” Crocker said.
Crocker consistently helps the organization by packaging and distributing gifts for seniors in the program.
“”I help put the gifts in the bags, and then label the bags, and finally deliver them to the senior centers,” Crocker said.
SCA takes part in supporting the fundraiser as well. Head of SCA Jessika Crance helps lead members of the SCA to help donate and organize the bags. Crance is directing support by implementing a contest among first period classes. The prize of the contest will be a free breakfast for the first period class that donates the most items.
“Usually there’s a brief time period where we will collect items that they need for senior citizens around Rockbridge County. We put boxes out and kind of do a collection drive for any of the items that they need, and we try to make it a competition between all the classes,” Crance said.
SCA takes a large role in helping organize Santa to a Senior, whether it’s organizing volunteers or finding gifts to handout.
“We want to be able to collect whatever items they need. We work closely with Melissa Sayer, who is the head Santa for a Senior project. She lets us know what they need, and we kind of sign up for whatever we think would be the easiest items for our students to bring in and donate,” Crance said.
Advertising the event is another key way to bring more senior citizens to sign up to the program. Crance helps by using the SCA to advertise the organization through various methods.
“We just have our members help with sorting the items that we get, getting the word out to their classes, whether that’s in English classes, doing announcements, social media, just for people to help donate,” Crance said.
All in all, Santa to a Senior plays a generous role in our community and helps spread much needed love to the elders of Rockbridge County. With the help of SCA, you can participate by donating items for the contest to further give Santa to a Senior a chance to help those in need.
