ASL Honor Society and Leader-In-Me are spearheading the Christmas Service Project. This project is meant to help families who are struggling around the holidays, even more so due to the impact of COVID-19. The goal is to help provide canned and boxed foods, other shelf-stable items, family games, card games and cash that the families may use for other food items. They invite all other clubs and organizations to come together and help in this time of need.

The organization’s leader, American Sign Language teacher Britni Huggins, and her students, have gathered clubs and organizations of Texas High to join them in their cause of helping those in need this holiday season. 

“This project is encouraging all organizations, all clubs on campus to divide the load. Each club and organization decides what they can bring and if each club can bring something, then [the project] would be enough to feed families,” Huggins said. “Each organization is supposed to select a type of shelf stable food. They will gather the food, using their members, and once they have gathered their items, Leader-In-Me will come together and set up ten boxes to then bless ten students for the holiday.”

Like many clubs on campus, Leader-In-Me hopes to use their influence to encourage others to give to the less fortunate. This year especially, due to the current pandemic and job layoffs, donation endeavors like these are needed more than ever.

“This project came to be because the Leader-In-Me teachers, me, Mr. Folse, and Mr. Anderson, we’re trying to come up with an idea of what to do for [a project in] December,” Huggins said. “I live in New Boston, I watch the news, and I remember seeing the lines here in Texarkana, in New Boston, at First Baptist Church, and at the Four States Fair that would last for hours of people trying to get boxes of food and it really got to me because that showed you how many families were in need of food. And just because we’re in school, those deliveries have gotten less and less, they’re only being delivered every three months instead of every month.”

This mission is making an impact on more than just the families receiving the donations, but also on the students involved in both organizing and participating in the project.

“Hopefully, the students who are involved in collecting the food will take the time to reflect on the fact that there are students who are in need,” Huggins said. “And just because we aren’t seeing them on the news, doesn’t mean [they don’t] exist.”

Although this mission is centered on the donations of those who are participating in clubs and organizations, that doesn’t mean that students who are not involved in clubs, and still want to help, should be excluded from giving.

“People who are not in clubs or organizations are welcome to help and bring food items on their own,” Huggins said. “They’re welcome to bring [donations] to my room, Room 10, or to Mr.Folse’s room, Room 111, on their own. I’ve already had a student [bring me their private donation] and these donations are welcomed and accepted.”

This eventful year has hurt people around the globe, and at home. Texas High’s Leader-In-Me and ASL Honors Society hope, with the help of the other clubs on campus, that, as a school, people try to help lighten the burden that some families may carry through this holiday season.

“Hopefully, this will bring awareness to everyone in the school that there is a need,” Huggins said. “It’s not just this year, it’s that this year makes the need bigger, but there’s always a need for food to the less fortunate.”