College of DuPage has begun its annual winter giving campaign “Up to S.N.O.W Good.” “S.N.O.W,” which stands for serving the needs of others in winter, and began under this name in 2018, is designed to raise awareness for organizations that impact and help students and community members.

Azin Matloubiehyazdi, a student worker in the Community Relations Office, believes that this is a great way to give back to the community.

“Up to S.N.O.W Good is an awesome opportunity to show our society  we care about them [and we] are willing to help,” Matloubiehyazdi said. 

Ami Chambers, COD’s community relations coordinator believes three opportunities give more of an option to those who work and go to school at COD.

Opportunity 1 is called Take a Tag. Located in the SSC atrium on a melting snowman display, tags have children’s names, and an item on their wishlist, with a $25 minimum. Humanitarian Service Project provides these names, and distribute the gifts. Another opportunity to give is by fulfilling a request for a minimum $10 a gift card to Jewel, Target or Walmart. These gift cards will be donated to either Bridge Communities or DCFS. 

“Those gift cards will go to families who maybe can’t afford Christmas presents or might go towards a holiday meal,” Chambers said.

The second giving opportunity is called “adopt an agency.” This is open to any faculty member, or group on campus. Wish lists are provided by 20 different local agencies, and groups are asked to fulfill the wish list. 

“All of those have been claimed already, which is fantastic,” Chambers said. “We almost doubled the amount of last year.”

Nov. 26, COD community members have another opportunity, to “make a special delivery.” Items donated for agency wish lists will be taken to those agencies. 

The final opportunity to help with the giving campaign will be on Dec. 6, at the “It’s a Wrap Party.” Participants will help wrap presents as well as make crafts to be donated and write letters to troops overseas. 

Chambers’ enjoyed this year’s  Up to S.N.O.W Good opening ceremony, noting the enthusiasm participants had for it. More than 200 people attended the ceremony. 

“Everybody got so excited to kick off the giving season and the more people who get excited about it, the more people participate and then the more people in the community will benefit,” Chambers said. 

Chambers believes that this event is a good opportunity to get the word out about smaller organizations who may not have a marketing budget.

I would say that so many people have come forward to say that they are so proud to work for COD and go to school at COD because of the importance we place on giving back to the community which is lovely I think certainly that is one of the goals of this. But also, the whole winter giving campaign was formed to support and raise awareness of the nonprofits that serve our students and our residence,” Chambers said. “ A lot of people will not have heard of the organizations we are collecting for. There’s small ones, there’s big ones. Phil’s Friends for example is an organization that sends care boxes across the country to people who have cancer. They’re small they don’t have a marketing budget, so this is a way for COD to use its size and reach to help promote what they do.”