This holiday season, many annual school traditions are making a comeback, including traditions that allow the community to give to local towns. For the 14th year in a row, St. Luke’s Society, the school’s service club, is offering ways to contribute to the local community this December. Besides the opportunities listed below, St. Luke’s has also made holiday cards and baked for food drives, essential workers at Sharon hospital, and Geer, a local retirement home.

Toy Drive

Seven local families from North Canaan rely on the community to provide for their gift-giving this holiday season. Students, faculty, and other community members bought seventy gifts for children ranging from ages 5-16 from an online registry. Melissa Powell, a social worker from North Canaan who helped arrange the drive, said, “I’m so thrilled that the students and community are excited to give. It melts my heart.”

Salvation Army Bell Ringers

On Saturday, December 5, St. Luke’s sent 9 students to ring bells outside of a Canaan Stop & Shop to raise money for the community. All proceeds went to local families in Salisbury and North Canaan. The collected donations will help cover holiday costs for families in need, in addition to food, winter clothes, utilities, and presents for the children of the families. Mrs. Caroline Burchfield ’76, faculty advisor to St. Luke’s said, “There is much gratitude for the students’ generous willingness to volunteer for this long-standing holiday tradition. The regional Salvation Director wrote last week, ‘This is very kind of the students. We gratefully appreciate it.’”

Winter Clothing and Food Drive

If you’ve walked around campus, you may have noticed boxes of clothes and food placed in the dorm hallways, and outside the Deans Wing. Donated items will go to local nonprofit organizations such as the United Way, Fishes and Loaves in Canaan, the Pilgrim House in Canaan, the Northeast Community Center in Millerton, and the Corner Food Pantry in Salisbury, CT. Lightly used clothing such as coats, gloves, sweatshirts, pants, and many other items can be left in the boxes in the dorm, or outside the Head of School office in Main Building. Non-perishable food items must be unopened and sealed. Mrs. Burchfield said, “What is particularly meaningful is that because we contribute every year, the local organizations have come to count on Hotchkiss; we have become trusted partners in their work which is a great honor.”

Students who would like to get involved can reach out to club heads Margo Donohue ’22, Jason Shan ’23, Billy Meneses ’22, or Ben Johnson ’22.