Our annual Christmas On Campus celebration is now moving off campus and has appropriately been renamed “Christmas Off Campus”. We have been taking a number of students to the Next Step Shelter in Kaka’ako a little over a year now for community service and outreach. After much discussion, the Campus Ministry team decided that it was time to look at a new way of doing Christmas On Campus and the idea of taking it to Next Step materialized.
Next Step is a transitional shelter for individuals and families to help them in finding employment and affordable housing. We believe that by taking our Christmas program off campus an even larger number of students will get to see and understand the social issues surrounding unemployment and lack of affordable housing.
The aim of the program remains the same, providing joyful experience to families and children and sharing with them the joy of the Christmas story.
We really want to encourage different campus groups and student organizations to continue to support the program as they have in the past. The only major change, besides it being moved off campus, is that we will only provide Christmas gifts for the children. The adults will be able to win goodie bags full of essential toiletries and personal hygiene items that we hope people will donate.
We will still need volunteers to help decorate, serve the meal, provide entertainment, and facilitate games with the children. Be sure to sign up to volunteer or register to buy a gift of a child.
Campus Ministry 