The Christmas season was a little more merrier for 150 Gilmer students.
A truckload of gifts made its way to Gilmer’s elementary schools last Tuesday and was delivered by students in Josh Snider’s entrepreneurship class at Gilmer High School.
The day of gift giving was the culmination of a month-long project by the class to get presents to those in need during the holiday season.
Snider said it was an emotional day for some. One student who received a doll had a difficult time containing her excitement.
When the student was asked if she was happy to have another doll, she responded, “I’ve never had a baby doll. I’d love to have one for the first time.”
“Some of these kids have never experienced what other kids have,” Snider said. “To see that joy and reaction, it was worth all of the process it took to get this done.”
Money for the gifts was raised by entrepreneurship students who contacted businesses in Gilmer County. Students started honing their cold-calling skills at the beginning of the semester and put them to use.
“Each kid came up with a list of businesses many of which they have built relationships with,” Snider explained. “These were businesses some of them had worked at, where some of them had family and they all did cold calls. Then they had to either follow-up with another phone call or a visit to the business and follow-up with a letter so businesses knew it was legit.”
Additional funds came from selling 90 T-shirts at $25 apiece to Gilmer County Schools’ staff members.
“Shirts were sold system wide and we had people from every school buy one,” Snider said. “The shirts had the business sponsors on the back to give them some recognition. The businesses were very generous, and we’re very thankful to those members of the community. Without them, we only would have reached 45 kids.”
GHS students composed thank-you letters to the 15 business that participated. Business donations and T-shirt sales netted $3,181 for gifts.
Prior to gift delivery, Snider contacted school counselors, nurses and administrators.
“A list was compiled of kids who were candidates to receive a Christmas present who might not otherwise,” Snider said. “Carl Day, Tina Watkins, Cayla West and Maria Nieves were instrumental in helping getting these kids lined up with these gifts. I’m very thankful for them.”
Entrepreneurship students selected the gifts and elementary students were given a list of 26 items and selected their top-three choices. Gifts were items such as remote control cars, dolls, shoes and Legos.
To reach the maximum number of students during the Christmas season, they made sure not to overlap with the county’s “Shop With a Hero” event.
Snider hopes the project was a helpful teaching tool for his students and one that begins a cycle of community responsibility.
“Business isn’t just about making money. It’s also about community relationships,” Snider said. “It was important these kids saw that business and community isn’t just about profiting. It’s also about giving back to your community. They got to learn about being part of giving back to a community.
“We hope that all of these 150 kids (who received a gift) are successful and one day they look back and say, ‘I remember when I received a Christmas present in elementary school and it really made my day.’ We hope those people stay in our community and are able to do the same thing in 20 years and then it happens again and again.”