Many of our students need Holiday Assistance. Parents are unemployed or just not able to meet the extra expenses that come around the Holidays.

“Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see.” The Polar Express. One of the greatest things to witness around Christmas is generosity. It is a beautiful sight watching students and families meet the needs of their community members.

Asking for Holiday Assistance

Nearly ⅓ of annual giving “donations” happens in December. – Leverage this statistic to support your families in need! People are the most generous around the holidays. This is an excellent time to reach out to your community, teachers, and families with the needs your school has.

Ask for exactly what you need. If you need families adopted ask for families, teachers, and organizations to adopt a family. Ask for grocery gift cards if you need food for your families. People are more likely to donate and meet your need if they know exactly what you need.

Partner with community organizations such as United Way, Salvation Army, Education Foundation, PTO, Charities, or Churches to help meet your needs. Many of these organizations want to help you. They have a heart for giving and if they know your need they can help meet it.

Discover the options that are already available in your community. Many organizations have holiday support programs. Partner with them to meet the needs of your families. You do not have to reinvent the wheel. Work with what is around your school then create programs and enlist donors to fill in the gaps.

Ways to Get Holiday Assistance

There are so many ways that your school can give holiday support to families. You can connect families with outside organizations, provide for their physical needs yourself, or create programs that support families.

Staff Adopt a Family

Family adoption is a school-wide holiday initiative. There are a variety of ways your staff can adopt families. First, you can inform the staff of how many families you need adopted and allow them to choose a family based on the number of family members.

Second, you can be very specific about the guidelines and the amount of money spent on each family member. Then allow staff members to simply adopt one family member. This option requires more coordination on your end.

Classroom Donation Challenge

Students love to get involved and serve. Schools that have large needs can have a classroom donation challenge. You can host a food drive, clothing drive, toy drive, or coat drive.

For schools with more varied needs, you can request each classroom bring in something different. For example, the 5th-grade classes are collecting grocery gift cards while the 6th-grade classes are collecting gas gift cards.

People Providing Holiday Assistance

Service-oriented school groups such as Student Council and National Honors society are a great option for manpower. You can use them to help run your donation drives or utilize them for wrapping presents.

Kids love wrapping presents. Host a wrapping party. Turn up the Christmas tunes and provide a few snacks. Soon you will have a Santa’s workshop full of wrapping elves.

Use your school newsletter to reach out to families in order to gain donations. As we said earlier, people like to help around the holidays. Show your families the needs you have and give them directions on how to meet them. You will be surprised by the amount of assistance you can gain for your families.

Parents’ Day Out

Host a “Parents Day Out” for younger students. Parents have the opportunity to drop their students off at school while they go out Christmas Shopping.

Plan fun activities for the students to do while they are there. This could include a Christmas movie, snacks, games, or other activities. Enlist the help of your older students to help supervise and entertain. Many school clubs require volunteer hours.

Charge a small fee for students to come. Use the money collected to help your families in need. Give parents the opportunity to donate more. Show parents your needs by setting up a giving tree where parents drop off their students. While they are out shopping they can get the items on the giving tree for your families in need.

SEL Unfiltered

Do you want to hear more? Check out the rest of our SEL and the Holidays series on our SEL Unfiltered podcast, wherever you stream your podcasts.

Check out other episodes in our SEL and the Holidays series, including Teaching Gratitude, Ways to Give, Holiday Diversity, Holiday Fun, and Holiday Self-Care.

Game of the Week

Every week on SEL Unfiltered we like to bring you a game or activity. You can use the game with your students, in the classroom, or in a small group. This week Kaitlin and I played a round of Holiday Guess Who.

Holiday Guess Who is a fun way to engage your students while they are practicing communication and critical thinking skills. Think 20 Questions. Holiday Guess Who can be played multiple ways. In version one, a student stands in front of the room. The teacher should write who or what they are above their head on the board. The student will then ask questions to the class to figure out who they are.

In version two, one person selects who they are and the rest of the class will take turns asking questions until they can figure it out. It is a great idea to put a limit on the questions. Kaitlin and I played using a 10-question limit. It is hilarious watching people try to think outside of the box!

Ideas for Holiday Guess who: Christmas Tree, Ornament, Present, Frosty the Snow Man, Snowflake, Elf, Santa Claus, or Rudolf.