‘Tis the season when a handful of athletes take time out from their daily workouts and find a certain family who is in need of a little Christmas spirit. These athletes pick a family that is in need and become their angels for the holidays by giving them 12 days of Christmas.
Haylee Rollins, a BYU gymnast, says, “We … get to see everyone else kinda out of their element, because you just see them as athletes, and you have the stereotypical athlete mentality, so it’s really cool to see everyone do as much as they can to help these families out.”
This service project started with the Cougar Council, which is a group of athletes that are selected by the athletic department.
Taryn Lewis, a member of the Cougar Council, says, “This was really one of the coolest projects we’ve done of the year, and it was a lot of fun, and … (it was nice) to be able to help another family out in need and stop thinking about ourselves for once.”
Lewis goes on to say, “This family … came here from Hawaii, so they don’t have a whole lot of warm clothing, and their dad is struggling with arthritis and he’s not able to work … and they’re struggling really badly financially.”
The athletes get the families things like winter coats, food and gift cards to restaurants and other places where they can have fun as a family.
After the athletes are done shopping, they wrap these gifts up and leave them on the family’s door step so they can see what Santa’s little helpers brought them.
