The season of gift-giving is here, and the Butler Center for Service and Leadership is celebrating the holiday season with its annual Hurricane Holiday Gift Drive from Nov. 4 to Dec. 4.
Students, administration, faculty and staff can donate new gifts for both children and senior citizens in South Florida.
This holiday gift drive has been a “the University of Miami’s largest and longest running holiday toy and gift drive,” according to the Butler Center for Service and Leadership’s website. Last year, the Butler Center was able to achieve their goal of donating 1,000 gifts, and have the same ambitious goal for this year as well.
“I couldn’t tell you exactly how long the drive has been going on for, but probably over ten years now. It’s been going on for a long time,” said Lindsey Goldstein, Associate Director for the Butler Center.
Additionally, the Hurricane Holiday Gift Drive is collaborating with known organizations such as Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.
“We’re working with the Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, Hope for Miami, Just Kids Center Inc., Toys for Tots South Florida and Home Instead Senior Care,” Goldstein said.
To participate, students should drop new and unused toys to the Butler Center for Service and Leadership located on the second floor of the Shalala Center, in Suite 204.
“We’ll take all sorts of things and specifically take unwrapped gifts because we eventually wrap them, so we need the gifts to be unwrapped so we can sort them,” Goldstein said.
The Butler Center will also provide students with tags for senior citizens, with specific requests from them.
“We’re collecting gifts for children and senior citizens. [Hurricane Holiday Drive] is for children of all ages from infants to teenagers,” Goldstein said. “We’re also collecting gifts for seniors, that can be things like robes, crossword puzzles, those kinds of things.”
Departments and Student organizations are also able to request their own drop box or bin that the Butler Center can provide.
For students looking for more ways to be involved with service for the holidays beyond this gift drive, opportunities are listed on the website volunteer.miami.edu.
“[The Butler Center] is promoting the gift drive, but there’s also wrapping parties and things that continue with the gifts going beyond Dec. 4 but we don’t really actively promote them because at that point people are in finals,” Goldstein said. “But, if students have free time and want to volunteer there are a lot of organizations looking for volunteers and those are all located at the website under Agencies where it will list all the organizations.”