This holiday season, give a gift that will benefit students in your community all year long.
The Aiken Standard’s annual Community Christmas Card fund is collecting donations until Friday. With a contribution of $1 or more, your name will be included in the card published in the Christmas Day edition of the newspaper.
Teachers and counselors at Aiken County Public Schools can use these funds to meet students’ needs directly, whether that’s a pair of warm boots or a utility bill at home.
Monica Smith, lead counselor at Ridge Spring-Monetta High School, said the fund has helped supply much-needed clothing, hygiene items, food and more for students.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith said students also need items like masks and hand sanitizer.
“At the high school level, most students don’t just waltz into your office to let you know they don’t have basic items,” Smith said in an email. “It takes a team of wonderful, caring teachers, administrators, counselors and staff to recognize that a student may be in need.”
School faculty and staff can recognize when a student’s shoes are too small or when they’ve been wearing the same clothes every day for weeks, Smith explained. The fund allows them to meet students’ needs directly.
“Without this fund, Aiken County schools would struggle to find the resources to assist these students,” Smith said.
Ridge Spring-Monetta Middle School counselor Jennifer Randall said the need is great at the school, where many students are in poverty.
Last year, Ridge Spring-Monetta Middle used Christmas Card funds to replenish the school’s clothes closet, with shirts, pants, socks, belts and underwear available for students who need them, Randall said.
Randall said the school also purchased shoes for a family with the funds.
“As school counselors, teachers, administrators, substitutes, custodians, food service personnel and instructional aides, we see needy students and families each day,” Randall said in an email. “The Community Christmas Card fund makes meeting some of these needs possible.”
There are multiple ways to contribute to the Community Christmas Card.
To make a donation online, visit aikenstandard.com/donate.
To donate by mail, write legibly the names to sign on the Community Christmas Card and send at least $1 per name. The Aiken Standard’s mailing address is 326 Rutland Drive, Aiken, S.C. 29802.
Readers can also donate with a phone call. Call the Aiken Standard office between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 803-648-2311 to put the donation on your debit or credit card.
The deadline to contribute is Friday at 5 p.m.
“We are beyond grateful for this project, and the students of RSM Middle and RSM High schools are as well,” Randall said. “It is truly a blessing. Thank you to all those that make it possible.”
Read the full Aiken Standard article HERE.