Before holiday break each year, Student Government members spend countless hours organizing hundreds of gifts to deliver for Merrillville students. But they don’t mind.

Student Government President Jamaelyn Sanders has participated in the wish list event for the past three years.

She said that many joys come from this event.

 “Wrapping all the presents and giving them away and seeing all the kids smile and happy makes my day,” she said. “For us to be able to help bring presents to kids adds to the Christmas spirit.’

Each year, Student Government sponsors a Christmas Wish List program that allows people to adopt a student in need to buy presents for. The program was able to help out 124 students and 45 families this year. 

School social workers provide the names of students and families who could use some extra help. Parents fill out a wish list for their kids. Then an individual or group picks a student (designated by a number) and receive the list of what the student wants. The families also receive gift cards for groceries.

The Student Government chose to help a girl from the intermediate school.

“We had a meeting all about her and went on websites like Amazon and selected things from her wish list. She really liked Lilo and Stitch so we  bought her a lot of stuff like that and used the Student Government account to buy it all for her,” Sanders said.

For Mrs. Carrie Altieri, a co-sponsor for Student Government, it was her first year setting up the event.

“It’s not too hard and the only bad thing is when people forget to bring the gifts and we have to shop at the last minute for students,” she said. “The experience was very heart-warming. Even though it’s a lot of work, it really didn’t feel like it.”

Buying gifts on Amazon was a fun experience.

“It was a lot of fun choosing items on a big screen with all of the students. We had so many more options and all of the students were able to attend this way,” Ms. Altieri said.

One change she would make next year is to start earlier. “Some of our items weren’t going to come on time so we had to make some last minute changes.”

Once people bring in their donations, Student Government members sort them to prepare them for delivery to all the students in the district. 

“All the packages are numbered so no one knows any names of anyone who was helped,”.Ms Altieri said. 

During the delivery, Student Government members walked down the halls with Santa at the schools while they play Christmas songs. Later, the social workers distributed the presents to the parents privately.

Senior Pascha Campbell enjoyed seeing the reactions on the students’ faces.

“When we drop off the presents, everyone is so happy and everyone feels good, really cheerful. Everyone just has a great time,” she said.