By HAYLEE BATES, News Editor
The NWOSU Art Society will be hosting its seventh annual holiday store and photos with Santa on Dec. 17.
This event will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will be located in the Student Center. The gift shop section will be in the Ranger Room, and the pictures with Santa, also known as Santa Land, section will be in the Wyatt Room.
This event is mainly for the children in the Alva community, but children from surrounding communities are welcome to attend as well.
“We send letters home with every elementary school kid,” said Angelia Case, academic projects assistant and media specialist. “We have to try to work with the school people about how many kids there are and how many kids per classroom. We try to sort them by classroom so that the teachers get a bag of letters to send one home with every kid.”
“The information goes home to the parents, hopefully,” she said. “The good thing is the older kids in the elementary school have had these letters every year prior, so I’ve had parents asking me this year if we’re still doing it.”
The NWOSU Art Society is the main sponsor of the event, but individuals in the community and on campus are able to volunteer for the holiday store and photos with Santa.
“Our group is pretty small, so we encourage other people to come and help us,” Case said. “We were encouraging people are SGA meetings to sign up and come and help us. Some of our student volunteers have the best time with the kids.”
Setting up for the event typically begins on the Wednesday of finals week. Students that cannot be there for the day of the event, but want to help, can go to the Student Center during their free time and help with the set up.
“We start setting up while students are taking finals,” Case said. “We tell them finals are first, but when you’re finished come find us because we’ll be there working on getting things set up.”
The NWOSU Art Society coordinates with a company outside of Kansas City, Missouri that provides their gifts for the store.
The children that come to the event are able to go through the gift store and pick out presents for their family members and friends for Christmas.
“They can actually take a gift out of there that’s wrapped up so no one in their family knows what it is,” Case said. “Kids can come in, and we’ll have helpers there to help them, and we kind of encourage the parents to stay outside the room, so they don’t ruin the child’s surprise.”
Parents are welcome to watch their children as they go through the store, or they can wait for them to finish outside in the food court area.
Children also have the option to take pictures with Santa. Each picture is $5.
“Every year we think that this will be the last one, but when you get there and you see the kids having all the fun and you see all of the pictures that come from Santa Land, they’re adorable,” Case said. “It has become a very important thing for these kids and their families.”
For more information about the holiday store and photos with Santa or sign up to volunteer, individuals can contact Case at (580) 327-8577 or by email at arcase@nwosu.edu.