This year, Christmas comes early with the arrival of TLC’s annual present drive.

TLC—or Team Leadership Corps—is a group of drug- and alcohol-free students, led by Mrs. Sarah Sams, who participate in numerous community-based projects, and they have been sponsoring the present drive for over 10 years.

The present drive is a way to make a foster child’s day, as Mrs. Sams explained,

“The present drive is . . . a drive that we run in conjunction with Beaver County’s Children and Youth Services [agency] where we’re given names of children who are in foster care who might have Christmas wishes or needs that we can meet, and then [Beaver Area students] sign up to shop for items that these children or their foster parents requested for them.”

TLC gets the names of 40 children from CYS, and because these children often ask for many items, they split the requests in half so that two students can buy gifts for the children, resulting in 80 students volunteering to buy presents for children.

The volunteering Beaver Area students are able to pick a foster child from the list of children in Room 200. The foster children’s requests aren’t too complex—a certain type of toy or clothing item usually—so it is easy to fulfill the requests.

Students shop for the gifts, wrap them, and write the child’s name and a given code on the gift label. Through the days leading up to the drive’s end, presents pile up in Mrs. Sams’s classroom.

An array of students from all grades participate in the program, and as of December 4, all foster children’s requests have been claimed. Students buying presents still have plenty of time to shop, as the drive ends December 18.

Be sure to check the December 17 edition of the ECHO to read students’ thoughts and results of the present drive!