To help others during the holidays, members of Jupiter High’s Student Government Association (SGA) participate in Adopt-A-Family of the Palm Beaches and visit Jupiter and Tequesta fire and police stations to decorate them for the holidays.

Adopt-A-Family is a program that provides continuous housing and support services to homeless families in Palm Beach County. The group also operates an afterschool program for children in elementary school.

The program was established in 1983 by Lucy Runyon, Jayne Ellison and Kay Mansolill when they noticed how Palm Beach County had too many families in need. They wanted to do something to help those families’ get back on their feet. Now, almost 35 years later, the foundation has assisted more than 45,000 Palm Beach County families with children.

“Participating in Adopt-A-Family is something we’ve been doing for years,” SGA’s Chairperson of Community Service, sophomore Sela Keating, said.

Keating began the process by contacting Adopt-A-Family, and she assigned SGA students two families to help. The students formed groups, and each group bought gifts from the kids’ Christmas lists. They wrapped the gifts and sent them to the program who will then distribute the gifts on Christmas Day.

Junior Grace Campbell-Hutts has been helping with Adopt-A-Family for the past three years.

“It feels really good helping these families and being able to give them Christmas gifts. I hope it makes the families excited for the holidays and to spend time together and share the items they received,” Campbell said.

If you are not in SGA and want to participate in Adopt-A-Family, you can donate clothes, toys, books and any other gifts to Mrs. McCann’s room 4-217.

SGA also visits police and fire stations around Jupiter and Tequesta to decorate and to bring food.

“We decorate the stations and bring them food, I like talking to the police and firemen and looking at all the equipment and stuff. It’s a tradition to decorate the local stations and bring them food during the holidays because they do a lot for us, and we want to thank them for all they do,” Keating said.

Campbell-Hutts agreed with Keating, and truly enjoyed visiting and decorating for the first responders each year.

“Personally I really enjoy getting to meet and talk to the people who help to protect our community and work hard. We give back to them because they work hard trying to keep us safe and to show them that we appreciate all they do for us,” she said.