As the holiday season comes upon us, many clubs at Wakefield are announcing angel trees, canned food drives, and other volunteer opportunities for their members to give back to the surrounding community.  The FBLA, Future Business Leaders of America, chose to have a toy and clothing drive that benefits the Salvation Army Center of Hope.  The Center of Hope is “an emergency shelter for women and children that provides three daily meals, case management, intervention programs, health care, child care, and guidance for school-age children and teens”, as mentioned on the Salvation Army website.

“I’ve always been a community person, and I think it’s good for [students] to see others that are less fortunate because we get caught up in what we have and what we want, and there are a lot of others that don’t have [those things],” Coach Wilson, the faculty co-advisor for The Future Business Leaders, said.

For the drive, the FBLA is requesting that students, members and non-members alike, bring in new toys and gently used clothing-specifically warmer clothes like coats, gloves, and hats.  These donations will be given to all ages of children and adult women.  Most families that find refuge at the Center of Hope are fleeing domestic violence situations, and a great majority of them leave without packing any bags.

“We tried to pick [a charity] that everyone had heard about before,” Anna Clark, the FBLA president and senior, said.  “It’s one of the first times that a club at Wakefield has done a clothing drive, and I think we’ll have more participants because students won’t have to go out and pay for stuff from the grocery store, they can just get something out of their closet.”

The drive will be going on until the 21st of December and donations will be accepted in Coach Wilson’s room (2306).  The FBLA officers and advisors are excited to see how the toys and clothes will help the women and children in need.

“All of the officers got together with our club advisors, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Stevens, and we knew we wanted to do something for the holiday season,”  Alec Ashforth, the vice-president of FBLA, said. “I think that for the people who are going to be receiving the donations, it will help them a lot so that they can also feel that same sense of common humanity and have some semblance of a normal life with the clothing and toys.”