Members of the Multicultural Business Students Association (MBSA) participated in a toy collection and donation drive this holiday season. Marking the seventh year in a row of the Dear Santa program, MBSA students led the initiative, mobilizing students, staff, and faculty across campus to work together to supply more than 200 gifts for children from the Cheyenne River Reservation in Eagle Butte, South Dakota.
Each year, the Cheyenne River Reservation Youth Project sends out more than 1,300 “Dear Santa” letters requesting gifts on behalf of their youths. MBSA receives some of these letters and then partners with organizations across campus to distribute them equitably. The organizations then create fundraisers to finance the gifts, and distribute letters of requests to their individual members to ensure the needed gifts are collected. This year’s participating CU-Boulder organizations included Alpha Kappa Psi, Beta Alpha Psi, Delta Sigma Pi, Diverse Scholars, Multicultural Greek Council, and Sigma Pi.
“It’s not what you donate or how much you donate that matters, it’s all about the meaning behind it,” said Alyssa Wilson, vice president of community outreach for MBSA. “Reading these letters and seeing that a majority of the kids were asking for basic necessities that we take for granted was an eye-opening experience that left a positive impact on everyone who participated.”
MBSA has been around since 2001 with about 50 active members. The student organization forms a social base for diverse students at Leeds to have a community and prepare for a career with confidence and success.