By Heather Calhoun
UHCLIDIAN STAFF

University of Houston-Clear Lake is working with the Salvation Army to give Christmas gifts to children and senior citizens who otherwise would have no Christmas. This program is called the Wish Tree.

The Wish Tree, located in the MISS office, offers a way to give during the holiday season.
photo by Angela Stone

"This is the fifth year that students and faculty at UH-Clear Lake have participated in the Wish Tree program," said Laura Sendejas, community outreach student ambassador. "Every year has been a success with all the children and senior citizens getting the gifts they asked for."

The Wish Tree is located in the Multicultural and International Student Services Office in the Bayou Building, Room 1604. There are ornaments on the tree that are in the form of gift tags that have pictures of drummer boys on them. Children and senior citizen's names and ages are on the gift tags.

This year 90 children and 10 senior citizen's Christmas gift requests were featured on the Wish Tree. The children and senior citizen's ages range from 6 months to around 78 years. Many children from the same family have gift tags on the tree.

The gift tags list the age, sex, clothing type, shirt, pant, dress, coat, and underwear size. There is also a place below these items for special gift requests. The special gift requests usually include video games, dolls, board games and athletic equipment.

"Anyone interested in participating in the Wish Tree should select a gift tag off the tree; then, whoever is at the desk will write down all the information from the tag and log your name in a book," Sendejas said. "You then need to buy new gifts from the list and bring them to us unwrapped before Dec. 16."

"I participate in the Wish Tree program every year," said Chrissy Fell, undergraduate student at UH-Clear Lake. "I went with my dad every year when I was too young to shop for a Wish Tree child and now I do this every year, not only to gain cord points from the Association for Childhood Education International, but also to help the kids."

After Dec. 16, the gifts will be taken to the Salvation Army for the parents of the children to pick up.

"More than half of the gift tags were taken before the Thanksgiving break," Sendejas said. "Every year we are lucky that students, faculty and staff all participate and pull together to make children's dreams come true."

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