As the holiday season approaches, many find themselves receiving gifts, but others devote their season to giving to those in need.

“There’s a tremendous amount of satisfaction that everyone gets when we give something to someone else,” Community Service coordinator Mary Collins said.

Collins is reminiscing on the yearly Holiday Gift Drive, something that she helped to establish nearly a decade ago. Since then, Evanston students have reached out to local organizations asking for items that they should collect, and each year we have delivered.

“The population here is really generous, and we’re so grateful that we can take a lot of stuff off our lists,” Jasper Davidoff, president of the Community Service Club, said.

Collins added that, without seeing the needs of others, people will often be less likely to give.

“We have this huge display of mittens that we use to find the donors for our organizations… So when you enter the main lobby, you’re going to see this huge thing all spread out,” Davidoff said.

The display will be up for four weeks, from Nov. 20 to Dec. 15.

“Each mitten has an item written on it, when you take a mitten you buy the object and donate it into one of the collection boxes that we have in the lobby,” Elena Basso, co leader of the Community Service Club’s Drive Committee, said.

This event is one of the biggest that the Community Service Club hosts, however it is only a fraction of what the club hosts throughout the year.

“We host one [donation] drive per month,” Basso said. “In the past months we have held School Supply drives, helped get clothes for the Heartland Alliance, and collected canned foods.”

The Community Service Club is one of the largest, student-run organizations at the school and holds 20 or more events every month

“There are people in our community who have resources that they can share and there are other people who need resources… so why not share what you can, give what you can,” Collins said.