CHRISTINE LEE ’18
Every Christmas season, Seattle Prep offers students the opportunity to help the underprivileged through the annual Giving Tree Charity Drive. As a Catholic and Jesuit school, Seattle Prep encourages students to challenge themselves to become responsible citizens who will lend a hand to those in need. Since 1993, Prep has organized the Giving Tree Charity Drive between Thanksgiving and Christmas break. This project educates and enables the Prep community to give back to the Seattle area in various ways.
There are three ways that a Prepster can get involved in the Giving Tree Charity Drive. The first way is by raising money for this year’s international organization, Stolen Youth. At the Giving Tree Assembly, Kate Murphy, ’15 spoke about her experience this summer learning about modern day slavery. She learned that, “there are more victims of human trafficking currently in the world than ever before, and that about 200 young girls per day are victimized in only the Seattle area”. The focus of Stolen Youth is to make sure that victims of human trafficking and modern day slavery have all their needs. They provide wrap services such as counciling, housing, health care, and job training to victims. By raising funds for Stolen Youth, students help the charity to offer more services for victims. Jars for Stolen Youth are organized by Collegio class or by junior or senior theology class, and are held in the main office. The jar with the least amount of money in it wins.
Another way to give back to the community is through donations of basic necessities to the Urban Rest Stop and the Wintoina. The Urban Rest Stop is a hygiene facility where homeless men, women, and children are given the opportunity to use bathroom, laundry, and shower services for free. The Wintonia is a Catholic Community Service Shelter in the Capitol Hill neighborhood that serves men and women coming out of King County’s Dutch Shisler Sobering Support Center. To help these organizations, each class is responsible for providing a specific necessity: Freshman bring in warm socks, sophomores and juniors bring in hygiene supplies, and seniors bring in winter gear.
Lastly, one can provide to the less fortunate by donating Christmas gifts to St. Martin’s shelter. A Catholic Community Shelter, St. Martin de Porres’ is a night shelter that provides safe, hospitable, and dignified shelter to chronically homeless men over the age of 50. Desired gifts may be seen on Giving Christmas Tree tags in the Commons. Supplies and gifts for Urban Rest Stop, the Wintonia, and St. Martin’s Shelter can be dropped off in the Community Ministry office (room 114 in McDonnell hall).
To maximize the gifts brought for the organizations, this year’s Faith and Action class has created the theme, “Smackdown Injustice”. They introduced the idea through creating a video with the Panthers battle against homelessness, addiction, and human trafficking.
The Giving Tree charity drive runs from December 1st to December 18th.
