Salisbury School celebrates Giving and Receiving

SALISBURY, Md. – Local students at The Salisbury School spent their last day of class Friday putting together gifts and packing up donations for a whole host of charities to help the less fortunate on Delmarva.

“Today we have everything from the Wicomico Humane Society, Operation We Care, Joseph House, Halo just to name a few we have had our kids all month bring in donations for those, and today we have them come and pick them up,” said Lower School Head Andrea Vandiver.

The school’s annual “Give and Receive” day saw students bringing in donations of food, office supplies, hygiene products; all in boxes lined with colorful messages and warm words of love and holiday cheer. Students say they all worked to gather and decorate the donations, and that getting everyone excited to help those in need was the most rewarding part.

“Everyone is always so excited we get up early it’s just awesome,” said 6th Grader Aila Olva, adding, “getting together with the little kids and taking the gifts to the truck with them and just having a lot of fun with them.”

School staff says a hands-on lesson about caring for Delmarva’s less fortunate is one of the most valuable lessons they can teach their students, especially during the holiday season.

“We really are teaching our kids to give back to the community and it’s an important tenant of our philosophy, we really want to teach our kids it feels just as good to give as it does to receive,” Vandiver said.

She tells us the tradition of donations is almost as old as the school itself, with the list of charities, and the impacts students make, growing every year.