We all know it is better to give rather than receive gifts around the holiday season, and what better and easier way to give back than the annual Teen Leadership Corps’ Present Drive!

Every year, TLC works with the Beaver County Children & Youth Services running a month-long drive to collect and provide gifts for specific foster children in Beaver County. The drive supports 40 foster children, ranging from newborns to 16-year-olds, and this year it ran from November 18 to December 17.

Social Studies teacher Mrs. Sarah Sams, sponsor of TLC, shared the message behind the present drive.

“It’s all going to specific children who are present in foster care typically because they were raised in households where the parents couldn’t care for them.”

Many teachers, students, and faculty took ownership of buying one child gifts on their own, but many also decided to shop for multiple children, and even entire classes came together and decided to shop for one or two.

If some of Santa’s elves don’t want to do the shopping, monetary donations also are collected to help cover the costs of gifts.

“The goal is to make sure that the kids who are stuck in foster care for the holidays have presents that they would really like to have rather than just a general age-appropriate present that they may not ask for,” explained Mrs. Sams.

After presents are purchased, they are to be wrapped and left with Mrs. Sams in Room 200 no later than tomorrow (December 17) to ensure the gifts get to C&YS and the kids in time for Christmas morning.

The annual present drive at Beaver Area is a tradition that conjures up the holiday spirit, the true gift, in both the generous participants and especially the foster children who get exactly the presents they love for Christmas this year.