Giving back to the community will warm small hearts and many low income families this late November with a visit from Santa Claus, bearing gifts and activities in the annual Inter-Club Council (ICC) Children’s Holiday Party.Children whose families couldn’t afford Christmas this year will now be helped out by their local community to keep the holiday spirit alive.
“The goal of this event is to give underprivileged children the holiday experience their families cannot afford to give to them,” Ana Safazada, ICC president said. “Most of these children come from single parent families with low incomes.”
Children from Head Start programs are typically ages 3-5 are faced with parents that have low incomes that leave little to no money for the holidays.
“This event will be the closest thing to a real Christmas for most of these children,” Chris Pham, ICC vice president said. “We want to keep these children in the holiday spirit.”
This holiday party will consist of many fun activities such as face painting, reindeer hat making, cookie decorations, and a photo booth.
“Each club will have their own activity that the children will be involved in, such as decorating the tree, making Christmas cards, and other activities,”Pham said.
Each child will be presented with a gift and Polaroid picture of Santa Claus where they can then make a picture frame at an activity table.
“There will roughly be about 80 children attending with hopefully about 40-50 volunteers,” Pham said. “We plan to have a big turnout this year.”
This event will be taking place in the Activities Center West Lounge with plenty of holiday decorations.
“This is both a rewarding experience for the children and for the volunteers,” Pham said. “There’s an emotional side that makes people feel good for giving back to their community.”

This is one of many events EC is proud to host annually by giving back to their community.
“This will be a great event that will make children feel happy that they were able to have holiday spirit even if their families couldn’t afford a real one,” Mark Hernandez, photography major, 19, said.

In this economy, money maybe tight but the community is tighter. Giving back to the community will help many children in need.
“We hope that this will be an amazing experience for all the children [involved] including their families,” Pham said.