BU students ‘adopt’ families for holidays

Boston University’s Community Service Center and the Salvation Army of Boston have paired up for the Angel Tree program in which one student or group of students adopts a family for the holidays.
The students then buy each child in their adopted family one outfit and two toys. Parents typically receive gift cards to grocery stores to provide larger meals for the holidays, CSC members said.
This year, BU students adopted 35 families out of the 350 families that the Angel Tree project sponsored this season, said College of Arts and Sciences senior Miriam Levine.
Levine, the CSC’s one-time events program manager, said the CSC took on its own family and will be helping out a single mother with seven children.
“I think it’s a little different than a lot of toy and book drives because you know you’re helping a specific family,” she said. “[Children] are not just receiving toys, they’re receiving necessities. To know that you’re going to provide a child with a jacket he wouldn’t otherwise have is great.”
Levine said many BU students chose to volunteer for the project.
“I think this is one of the programs where we have a wide variety of students involved,” she said. “We’ve done this for at least four years. The Salvation Army is very appreciative.”
Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences senior Shilpa Reddy, this year’s Children’s Theater program manager at the CSC, said the Angel Tree program makes holiday giving more personal.
“I think that usually when people do holiday donations, you don’t have a face on them,” she said. “We have sports teams do it, halls do it and so do other students. It can really make you feel like you’re making a difference in someone’s life. They’re really small things, but they really do make a large difference in people’s lives.”
She said donations even enlarge the size of a family’s holiday meal.
“Parents will usually ask for grocery store gift cards to have a bigger meal,” she said.
School of Management senior Dana Couch, the Alternative Spring Break manager at the CSC, said she was excited about participating in the project.
“The Angel Project is a really awesome thing to do around the holidays,” she said. “It’s an opportunity for kids to get gifts who otherwise wouldn’t celebrate Christmas. As an office, we all adopted a large family. Each kid gets a winter outfit and two gifts, which is awesome, because they deserve it.”
Mary Beth Picarella, a CAS junior and the manager for the Voices from the Middle program at the CSC, said generosity is a win-win situation for all involved.
“It’s just a chance to reach out to people who are in need in a special way and help the kids and parents,” she said. “I got the toys that I’m giving to my child. One’s more educational and the other is more sporty.”
College of Engineering senior Divya Srinivasan, the Siblings program manager at the CSC, said students feel gratified knowing they contributed to a local cause.
“I think the fact that you’re able to interact with families in Boston and help out people who can’t afford Christmas present for themselves is great,” he said. “You can do it with your friends and bring light to their holiday.”