Christmas Committee Fundraisers Adjust to Pandemic

Fundraisers are an expected thing during Christmas time, as it is the season of giving, and COVID has altered traditional fundraising events happening at HUHS and around the community.

The Hartford Christmas Committee has always been one of the big fundraisers in the past. This year, their fundraiser changed to prevent the risk of COVID.

In previous years, the Christmas Committee had a giving tree, where community members could purchase gifts and items that families needed. This year they are collecting gift cards and money.

“We considered not having the project in 2020, but we knew the need was there,” Secretary of the Christmas Committee Rita Pruski said. “We decided to continue with the project but in a way that would have the least contact with our volunteers and the families.”

HUHS clubs partake in fundraisers, in which the money earned goes straight to the Christmas Committee.

H-Club is collecting gift cards and money which will benefit the community.

“This year, there are no giving trees throughout the community and the Christmas Committee is only accepting gift cards and monetary donations,” math teacher and H-club Advisor Kristen Helms said. “Rather than a toy drive and class competition, we can only encourage the HUHS community to donate gift cards.”

Along with H-Club, FFA is doing a fundraiser to help the Christmas Committee.

The FFA annual fruit sale had to be modified to keep HUHS staff and students, along with community members safe.

While they are keeping the fruit sale aspect of their fundraiser the same, they are altering their pickup of the fruit.

“We used to let people come in throughout the school day and some of our students would meet them and give their orders to them,” agricultural sciences teacher and FFA advisor Kim Yohn said. “What we are going to do this year, is have drive-throughs.”

The money raised by FFA and H-Club helps with the Christmas Committee’s fundraiser this year.

“We would not be able to continue with this project without [HUHS] support, especially the Hartford FFA and the H-Club,” Pruski said.

Along with the pickup, the FFA fundraiser is altering the prep of the fruit they sold. To make the drive through more efficient, they are bagging all of the fruit in quarters ahead of time, which is something they normally did not do.

Yohn believes that this year’s fundraiser is more important than previous years because the Christmas Committee previously relied on community members to donate items for families in need.

“The fruit sale is even more important because [the Hartford Christmas Committee] needs the funds and the money,” Yohn said. “There are families especially this year that have been hit very hard and who need it.”

GEDO 2 teacher Jamie Piittmann believes that it is important to help the community through fundraising, and it makes the community happier and healthier. Even though she believes, fundraising is necessary but COVID is a concern during this time.

“It may be necessary for us to pause our activities until the infection rates are greatly reduced,” Piittmann said. “I do not want to risk someone's health over a school project - even though I find it very valuable to the students.”

Piitmann uses a senior project in her GEDO 2 class to help students practice skills useful in the workplace and build connections.

Through her senior project, she wants her students to work on a set of skills that include: “creativity, self-direction, innovation, flexibility, problem-solving, social, critical thinking, productivity, communication, accountability, collaboration, leadership, technical literacy, responsibility, and initiative.”

Senior Jailyn Schilter is a student in Piittmann’s GEDO 2 class. For her senior project, Schilter is doing a fundraiser for the Washington county humane society. Because of COVID, she is not allowed to fundraise at the high school, so she chose to fundraise at Piggly Wiggly.

“I think [fundraisers] should be more common now because there are so many more people that need help in order to survive,” Schilter said.