With just days to go before Christmas, students at Chollas-Mead Elementary in San Diego Unified are feeling the holiday magic.
“The elves are doing their job, the reindeer are revved up. I just got to slim down to get through these chimneys, and I’ll be good,” Santa Claus said.
Father Christmas was at the school Wednesday morning to listen to the wish lists of many young students.
“Dolls, hot wheels — yeah, there's a lot of suggestions from the kids,” said Old Saint Nick. “They seem excited and supposedly they've sent a list off to Santa and they've been nice.”
In addition to seeing Santa, every student received a gift, selected by their teacher and wrapped by parent volunteers.
“Christmas is my favorite (time of) year,” said first grader Isabella King-Speaks.
She’s feeling excited about the holidays, alongside her friend and classmate Ariana Perez-Mojica.
“Well, you get to spend time with your family and you have gifts,” Ariana said.
These holiday festivities are part of the school’s second annual Winter Holiday Toy Giveaway. It’s an event where the school partners with different community organizations to collect gifts for students.
“Every kid in the school, over 600 kiddos, are receiving a gift wrapped,” said principal Kristi Hunter-Clark.
She said Chollas-Mead is a “Community School” — which means it provides services and supports the neighborhood’s needs.
Hunter-Clark said nearly all of the school’s student population lives below the poverty line. District data show 94% of students at the school receive free and reduced-price meal services.
“For our community, and being able to give back and just give a little, it means a lot for our kids — our families feel supported,” Hunter-Clark said.
Caroline Grondin is the founder of nonprofit organization Grondin Community Bridge. She helped to organize many of the toy donations for the students over the past few months.
Grondin said much of that work took place around San Diego’s Scripps Ranch neighborhood.
“A lot of these children go through a lot that some adults would struggle with. And so this is just that once a year — that time we can help and make it magical — because they're children,” Grondin said.
After the students picked up their gifts and said goodbye to Santa in a large multipurpose room, they headed back to the classroom.
There, the holiday festivities continued for first graders Ariana and Isabella, with a song and dance.
While the two young girls had to wait to open the donated presents until they got home, they were thinking ahead — wishing for a purple bike and pink remote control car this Christmas.
San Diego Unified starts its two-week winter break after school gets out Friday.
