CAFNR plays Santa

The college sought sponsors to donate food and gifts.

By Robby Lewis

Published Dec. 4, 2007

The College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources Student Council is helping the Voluntary Action Center with its Christmas Program, which seeks to improve Christmas for less fortunate families in Columbia.

For the Christmas Program, the Voluntary Action Center recruits sponsors to adopt families and provide them with gifts and food for a holiday meal.

Monica Bailey, the Voluntary Action Center project director and Christmas Program coordinator, said the process of finding deserving families starts early.

Bailey said the center-registered families who met the requirements in October. Families must meet certain income, age or disability requirements.

Bailey said the Voluntary Action Center expects sponsors to provide their adopted families with what they would want their families to have for Christmas.

"This year, we signed up 1,200 families and individuals, groups, businesses and churches have all sponsored them," Bailey said. "What we ask them do is provide the makings of a holiday meal. We can't accept perishable food, so they donate canned food and/or gift cards. We also ask that they provide a gift for every child, elderly or disabled person in the home."

Bailey said the CAFNR Student Council really stepped up last year.

"Last year, the CAFNR Student Council took more than a dozen families and wiped out what we had left to adopt," Bailey said. "It went really well for all the families."

Bailey said so far, this year is no different.

"The CAFNR Student Council has done the same thing this year, and they have adopted 13 families," Bailey said. "They are one of our big groups that take a whole bunch of families and they always do awesome and get everything done."

MU student Andrew Cox, the CAFNR Student Council relations team leader, is in charge of CAFNR's involvement with the Christmas Program this year. Cox said this is the fourth year the CAFNR Student Council has been a part of this program.

"This year, we got 13 sponsors, including 11 clubs and organizations and two fraternities," Cox said.

Cox said once sponsors agreed, the CAFNR Student Council provided them with all the information they needed.

"The sponsor got a gift sheet that told them how many people are in the family and gave them gift ideas," Cox said. "We recommend $50 per person and $50 for the family as a whole."

Adams said the council holds other events later in the year.

"This is our big community project," Adams said. "We also have an adopt-a-highway project and a CAFNR softball tournament that raises money for Relay For Life."

Bailey said she is impressed with the students.

"Some organizations take three or four families, but they stepped up and took 13," Bailey said. "It's impressive."