WSU students, staff give to Ogden kids

Students, faculty and staff at Weber State University helped to create Christmas for hundreds of Ogden children who might have gone without this year.

After weeks of collecting toys, winter clothing and other items, employees in the Information Technology Division took "enough to fill two pickup trucks," with donations to the Salvation Army, said IT specialist Rosalie Polson. She was told their gifts covered 500 Angel Tree tags that had been returned to the center unfilled.

In addition to toys and gloves, the school gathered more than 300 canned food items for the Utah Food Bank, as well as 196 shoeboxes filled with toiletries and other necessities for local veterans.

Students also decorated a couple dozen trees that were displayed on campus before being donated to families in the area.

"People have been extremely generous," said Donna Rigby, director of Veterans Upward Bound at WSU. "In some cases, they filled the shoeboxes and put them in larger containers with clothing items."

The group nearly doubled their goal of 100 boxes, providing items to share with homeless veterans in two Salt Lake locations and the Homeless Veterans Fellowship in Ogden.

"This is wonderful, amazing and inspiring to know that that there are so many people who are willing to do so much for others," said Carol Merrill, director of the Women's Center on campus. Typically, the center can only help one or two students in need each year, but this year even more applied, and Merrill enlisted assistance from departments across campus.

Among other programs, the school helped more families and individuals than in years before, including a beneficiary, Teresa , who said "just the thought means the world to us." She and her husband were beneficiaries of WSU charity this year, at a time they were "struggling in the current economy."

E-mail: wleonard@desnews.com