Caleb Lewis smiled big while talking about his experience with Wish Upon A Star — a campaign aiming to collect gifts for 1,000 neglected children in North Central Florida.
Starting this week, students, faculty and all of the Gainesville community can buy gifts for children living in shelter homes and bring them to Santa Fe College. The campaign will reach across 13 Florida counties.
Donors are encouraged to purchase each child two gifts that total about $50. Some children have received presents totaling more than the average price, such as a bike or horseback riding lessons, said campaign spokeswoman Jen Petion.
Donors have until Dec. 1 to purchase gifts and drop them off at Santa Fe’s Office of Civic Engagement and Service.
Lewis, a Santa Fe multimedia sophomore, described last year’s Wish Upon A Star as a good experience and said he will be participating again this year.
The 20-year-old said the child he donated a gift to last year was about 5 years old.
“It was really fun shopping for him because he really wanted a truck,” Lewis said, “and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can actually do that.’”
Kimberly Buchholz, an Office of Civic Engagement and Service spokeswoman, said the office collected gifts for 73 children last year and this year hopes to receive gifts for more.
At the end of the month, she said the gifts are gathered and distributed at a neighborhood Catholic church.
Despite the season of giving, Santa Fe sports management sophomore Jeremy Bell said he thinks some people donate gifts to children simply because they feel obligated to do so.
“If they ain’t doing it with a sincere heart, then it really don’t mean nothing,” Bell, 21, said.
But Miranda Nichols, a dual-enrollment student at Santa Fe and a member of the Service Corps — the group helping with the campaign — said gifts can mean a lot to children on Christmas Day.
“I just know what it feels like not to have your parents around on Christmas,” Nichols, 16, said. “So just to have gifts that mean something to you, that can help you have a good Christmas day.”
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 11/7/2014]
