By Vic Cox

From the Community Affairs Board Thanksgiving food drive receiving a student’s personal check for $1,000 to the Faculty Club providing holiday lunches this month for up to 30 elementary school students, the UCSB community is showing its holiday spirit.

In a year that has seen residents of the planet pummeled by earthquakes, hurricanes, and history’s most lethal tsunami, donor exhaustion is widespread and understandable. Yet campus kindness is unflagging, as is evident from this incomplete compilation:

CAB volunteer coordinator Pam Van Dyke says she is still in awe of the generosity she saw as the Associate Students’ pre-Thanksgiving food drive climaxed. The Inter-Fraternity Council stepped up with a $500 donation; a staff member in the Communications Services Office organized her coworkers to donate $90 worth of groceries, which she personally delivered to the CAB Office; another staff member in the Student Affairs Division planned a volunteer service project with some friends; and there was that anonymous student donor, one of many students who contributed.

The result was 35 stuffed grocery bags, each with a $40 Von’s gift certificate, for 35 needy Isla Vista families, said Van Dyke. She felt as if “my heart was about to burst” as she delivered the foods to the distribution center, she recalled.

Last week, Transportation and Parking Services started collecting canned food to assist the Food Bank of Santa Barbara County. Now in its fourth year, the annual Campus Cares Canned Food Drive, which will end on Dec. 16, has steadily increased its donations. The first effort in 2002 netted 500 pounds of nonperishable foodstuffs; last year’s brought in 2,164 pounds. This year’s goal is 3,000 pounds, said organizer Elena Ricci.

Donation centers are the Parking Office, the East Entrance kiosk, and in front of the UCen. Drop-off hours are between 7:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Other activities this month include the Isla Vista Children’s Party on Friday, Dec. 9, that is cosponsored by the Professional Women’s Association and the I.V./UCSB Community Liaison Office. UCSB Bookstore has donated 150 stuffed teddy bears for the children. Though personal gift wish lists were distributed last week, volunteers are welcome. To help, contact Katya Armistead at katya.armistead@sa.ucsb.edu.

The class that won Isla Vista School’s recent jog-a-thon will get a behind-the-scenes tour and free holiday buffet lunch from the Faculty Club on Dec. 14. “We’ll tell them about possible careers, such as club manager or chef, as well as feed them,” said Linda Ruuska, the club’s general manager. She estimates that the club may treat as many as 30 kids.

Toys for Tots will take unwrapped, new toys until Dec. 24 at its collection point in the Public Safety Building lobby.