With winter break almost upon us, students are winding down, packing for road trips and getting ready to settle down for a carefree week-and-a-half of freedom. However, in the midst of all this flurry of inactivity, there are more than a few students who brave the icy winds to volunteer around the community.

      While some families set out cookies for Santa or wrap hastily bought presents on Christmas Eve, sophomore Jacob Holiday and his family serve food to the needy at First United Methodist Church downtown.

   “On Christmas Eve, it’s usually just our family,” Holiday said. “Sometimes we invite other families to help, but it’s usually just us. We do about sixty turkeys and ten hams.”

      On Christmas morning, First United Methodist church, located on 946 Vermont Street,  annually hosts a Lawrence Free Community Christmas Day Dinner to serve meals to needy citizens.

“It makes a lot of people happy, so it makes me feel good,” Holiday said.

Students have the opportunity to be just as active by participating in the community through a variety of school-sponsored events with FYI, Key Club and National Honor Society.

      “In Lawrence, it’s not hard to find organizations that will take student volunteers,” said  Key Club sponsor Jacob Larson. “I get e-mails from organizations who ask for Key Club students who want to volunteer.”

       From October through January, Key Club, a national student-volunteer organization, takes part in Chocolate and Tea at Three (a charity auction event), Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, bell-ringing, and serving meals to the homeless on Martin Luther King Jr. day.

     “The main thing that Key Club participates in is bell ringing, but there are always events like food drives, toy drives and clothing drives that they’re more than willing to participate in,” Larson said.

      However, students have the chance to be involved in something completely new this year. Peggy Nelson, the FYI, Inc. and National Honor Society sponsor, says that both clubs are teaming up to help out Blue Santa, an event sponsored by the local police department that gives gifts and decorates Christmas trees for each other and members of the community.

    “This year we decided to try something different— it’s going to be things for teens,” Nelson said. We’re going to put blue Christmas trees everywhere that will have items you can give to teens and their families, because those are the individuals that are most overlooked.”

       At the front of the room stood a tall Christmas-tree shaped object covered in plates of broken glass. It wasn’t the enthusiastic donation of an art student, but a project that members of FYI will submit for the Festival of Trees to be auctioned off.

        “[The tree] is auctioned off and the money goes to kids living in the Shelter,” Nelson said. “This year our theme is, ‘Lives broken and putting back the pieces.’”

       Whether spending Christmas morning serving food or getting involved in the countless volunteer opportunities through school clubs, students have the chance to make someone else’s holiday a little more jolly.

“As teachers and students, we have so much time on our hands during the holidays than the rest of the community,” said Larson. “I think we can put that to good use helping the community.”