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December 15, 2016 - The Lariat Editor-In-Chief, Brady Wells
CHS faculty and students worked together during the first half of December to make the Christmas dreams of nearly 50 elementary students come true by participating in the annual “Angel Tree.”
Created several years ago by former government teacher Archie Haddox, the Angel Tree program consists of a coalition of elementary teachers, high school faculty, and students. Lists of first, second, and third grade students in need were made and given to Kaylin Burleson, who served as a liaison to high school teacher sponsors. Those sponsors then delegated tasks to students, who each chose an anonymous child to buy gifts for.
“When [Haddox] left last year he had one specific requirement of me,” Burleson said. “He said ‘I want you to make sure that you keep the angel tree going’.”
Since its beginning, the Angel Tree has expanded greatly.
“In the past it was just Mr. Haddox’s senior class,” Burleson said. “This year we kind of extended it out.”
The expansion of the Angel Tree to the entire high school allowed many more generous individuals to participate.
“We had 48 kids this year just from elementary alone,” Burleson said. “We would like to add F.L. Moffett.”
The children’s requests for Christmas gifts have been very humble.
“They ask for clothes. They ask for shoes,” Burleson said. “To me, Christmas has always been a ‘get something that you don’t normally necessarily get. “For some of them, that may be clothes.”
Natalie Morse served as a coordinator, organizing presents and distributing lists of anonymous children to teachers and students willing to help.
“We had all the presents covered, and then we had [students] that brought extra presents because they wanted to help anyway,” Morse said. “On Tuesday we got all of the gifts and walked them across the street to Center Elementary and dropped them off.”
Few changes are expected to be implemented in the future.
“They were kind of disappointed that they didn’t get to see the kids that would benefit,” Morse said. “I was really proud of how well they did and their going above and beyond. I was blessed to be able to work with them.”
