On Wednesday, December 21, the Stamford High School Debate Team donated over forty gifts to children in need for the holidays. Students on the team were assigned kids from within the Stamford community and the Pacific House and got their names and ages as clues as to what to get.

The gifts will be given to recipients on Christmas morning, with some kids even getting multiple gifts because of the overwhelming amount of community support. As the coach of the Stamford High Debate Team and leader of these efforts Jeremy White explained, “This is the third year I’ve done this and the second year we’ve done it as a team. I think it’s interesting because it is a community event; it’s one of my friends that wanted to do this because of his pure belief that every kid should be able to wake up with a present on Christmas morning. He reached out to the Pacific House, and they reached out to more community members, and we all jumped on it.”

White says that he definitely plans on more community-focused projects like this in the future, saying “I always think there’s value in giving back to the community. I mean, the fact that we had so many kids participate in it is a great thing.”