SALT LAKE CITY — The Jewish community in Utah came together Wednesday to help more than 200 West High School students bring home just a bit of spirit and joy with free holiday shopping for families in need.
“My family needs to have, even though we don't celebrate Christmas, clothes are kind of expensive now," said tenth grader Fatuma Ali.
Ali shared how the holidays can be a difficult time for students at the school.
“People usually use school as their comfort zone, or like a way to get out of the house, but then, well, it's closed up, it's cold outside, and there's not much stuff to do," she said.
For 35 years, the Utah chapter of the National Council of Jewish Women has collected donations ranging from jackets to diapers, rice, toothbrushes and books for its annual Shalom/Salaam/Tikkun-Olam project.
“[Shalom] means peace in the two languages, and the Tikkun-Olam means to repair the world through service,” explained Susan Corth with the council.
The donations are for students whose families have recently migrated to the state.
“Many of them come with absolutely nothing. Many of my students have walked here from Venezuela, literally walked here taking months, and they have lost all of their belongings, traveling through dangerous areas, traveling through water,” said English language development teacher Valerie Gates.
Each student was able to fill their own bags with items their families need and gifts they might want.
“We have these amazing volunteers who come on Friday after school and we deliver all of these bags to their homes so they don't need to go through the awkwardness of carrying all the bags onto the buses with them or walking home with them,” Gates added.
For Wednesday's event and others, Ali says she’s proud to be a West High Panther.
“I feel like my school is really cool for this, because I usually don't really boast about the school because, like, it's really old and there's not much cool stuff happening," she admitted, "but I don't really see other schools doing this for their students.”
