Holiday festivities have just begun, including the annual Holiday Write Night, a community service event held every year at LT’s South Campus Discovery Center in early December. The event allows for high school students to help young children send emails to Santa via computer.

This year the event will be held on Tuesday, Dec 8. Anywhere from 300 to 400 children K-3rd grade students will attend this event to write a letter to Santa. On top of that, there will be around 300 student volunteers and 20 adult volunteers who will assist with the event.

Once the children enter, a student volunteer, dressed up as an elf, will accompany a child through all of the activity rooms. Once that child has written a response to Santa, the student volunteer will lead that child back to his or her parents and then take on another child. There are various other responsibilities for the other student volunteers, such as coloring, face painting or even story telling.

“The atmosphere is very happy,” Dorothy Cochran, head of the event, said. “I love to see the high school students interact with the children.”

Cochran has been running the event ever since it has begun. She is the coordinator and lead instructor at the South Campus Discovery Center. Not only do the adult volunteers appreciate the event, but so do the student volunteers.

“My favorite part of the event is seeing the kids faces light up as they walk into a new room filled with fun things to do,” volunteer Michael Phelan ‘16 said.

Phelan has been working the event for three years. His job is to walk the children around to the various activities the event has.

The event has really improved the community in the past few years, Cochran said. It allows for high school students to interact with younger children. This creates a happy and fun environment for the children and parents.

“It makes the children and their parents very happy, it shows off LT students at their very best, and lets LT students experience the joy of giving back to our community,” Cochran said.