Mary Haust,project coordihnator for the Binghamton City School District.

(left to right) Josh Shapiro '03, Becky Patt '03 and Peggy Zaharis

This year, sponsors include student organizations plus individuals, families, employees of administrative and academic departments on campus, and a couple of community organizations that have no direct ties to Binghamton University. Some office or department employees agree not to buy Christmas presents for each other, but to pool their money and sponsor a family for the Holiday Drive, instead. One campus employee enlisted her family, and together she and her brothers and sisters and parents are sponsoring a family of seven. Contemporary Singles, a local group that has no ties to campus, chose to sponsor the SA Holiday Drive rather than another charitable effort partly because they wanted to experience the joy of shopping for a family. Zaharis' daughter, Carrie Zaharis '01, sponsored a little girl last year when she was still a student, and chose to continue to support the program by sponsoring a little boy this year.

"When you read the profiles, it's just so sad," said Zaharis. "You want to do everything you can to help these people who are in such need. Some of these children need winter coats and mittens. Mary Haust told me that you wouldn't believe the number of children who come to school without socks. Imagine, in this weather!"

Zaharis cited one family of seven whose income has been severely reduced because the father, who has a brain tumor and faces surgery in January, has had to cut his work hours in half. Another family just lost almost everything they owned when their house burned down in November. "The need seems even greater this year than last -- maybe because of all the layoffs in the area," Zaharis noted.

All the sponsors brought their bags and boxes of labeled presents to the University Union, room 133, on Dec. 9, in time for the SA's Holiday Drive press conference. "The presents are all so beautifully and cleverly packaged for the families," said Zaharis. "People really get into it, they want the holidays to be nice for these families, and they put a lot of thought and effort into it."

How the Holiday Drive got started

Now in it's 13th year, the Student Association's Holiday Drive began in 1990, and Michelle Adams '94 -- a freshman then -- played a key role in making it a resounding success right from the outset.

Adams attributes the idea behind the holiday drive to Seth Jarrett '91, who was SA president at the time. "It was Seth's idea to help the local community families," Adams said. "I was his assistant when he asked me and a fellow classmate of mine, David Bluestein '94, if we'd take this project on." Bluestein and Adams took the idea and ran with it. Together, they brought it from concept to fruition that first year. Afterwards, Adams took the drive under her wing, and served as director of the holiday drive for all of her remaining years at Binghamton. "I put in a tremendous amount of time," she acknowledged, when asked. "We would start in September, getting everything geared up.

"We worked really hard to incorporate the University community with the community at large," continued Adams, who has good memories of working with Mary Haust, a coordinator for the Binghamton City School District who still works with the SA in providing profiles of needy families, and coordinating the distribution of the presents. "She's so wonderful, just amazing," said Adams, who matched family profiles with the groups that were sponsoring them. The first year, the holiday drive helped about 25 families, Adams believes. It has grown since then. This year, the drive is sponsoring 46 families, totalling162 family members.

From the beginning, the Holiday Drive incorporated "almost every SA-listed group, including LASU, BSU and ASU," said Adams. "Then we brought in the whole Greek council, and fraternities and sororities each took a family. Administrative offices took families as well, but it was really a student-run group."

The mission was really to provide help to the community via BU students, Adams said. "It was a way to reach out to the community and tell them we were at school to do more than just be students for 7-8 months out of the year; that we were there to give back to the community."

The Holiday Drive's large press conference in UU 133 also dates back to its earliest days, and Adams spoke at those for the first four years of the program. "The first year I did it was the first year [President] Lois [DeFleur] came," she said. "It was wonderful. One year the mayor of Binghamton came. Mary Haust would also come and speak on behalf of the families." The sponsoring student organizations would also be there. In December of her senior year, the week of the Holiday Drive press conference, Adams was named the Citizen of Week on a local television channel.

"It was really just a wonderful feeling that was created on campus -- the high point for the student groups as they finished their finals and left for break," said Adams. "It was something that I was always personally very proud of, as were the campus administration and the student groups. The student groups are really what made it click. It was thrilling to be able to do that for the community. And know that on those holiday mornings . . . " here Adams' voice trailed off as she imagined those holiday scenes.

Michelle Adams, executive director of the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), was elected to the Alumni Association Board of Directors in 1999 and chairs the board's advocacy committee. She also serves on the fundraising and long-range-plan committees. She was very active in the SA as a student, and in addition to directing the holiday drive, she headed up the programming board and served as a BU council member.