As December rolls in and holiday spirit fills the air, we see heroes on campus working to serve our community. Club chapter Soldiers’ Angels works diligently to bring aid and support to veterans year-round. During the holiday season, the club fundraises supplies outside of school in order to form care packages for local veterans.
To fundraise, club members stand outside local stores like Albertsons for up to eight hours, asking for donations to fill stockings. They ask for items like granola bars, trail mix, card games, and personal hygiene products. With these items, along with handwritten cards, the club fills over 200 stockings annually.
““We went to Albertsons, and we collected donations for local Vterans. We took all the donations that we received and a bunch of stockings to fill. We also include cards from here on campus and the local elementary school,” Hope Khalili (11).
Club president Hailey Palmer (12) opened the club chapter her freshman year of high school in 2022. Working with the organization prior during middle school, she wanted to expand her work to her school, starting the first Soldiers’ Angels chapter at SJHHS. Every month, the club meets to write cards to a specific veteran. Cards can be for birthdays, holidays, or for Veterans in the hospital.
“I worked with Soldiers Angels in middle school. They have different things you can do so what I would do is bake and put together care packages each month for a different deployed service number,” Hailey Palmer (12).
(Iman Elkoustaf)
Along with the care package items, cards from club members as well as cards from elementary school students are put into the stockings. Every year, Palmer goes into her previous fourth-grade class and speaks to students about what a veteran is and the purpose of Soldiers’ Angels.
Over the four years Soldiers’ Angels have assembled and donated around 1000 stockings. As Palmer gets ready to graduate this school year, the club will be passed down to Khalili.
As president next year, Khalili plans on continuing the traditions of the Christmas stocking fundraiser while also expanding donation opportunities. By maintaining these traditions and expanding the club’s impact, the chapter aims to uphold the integrity of its mission to give back to the heroes who have sacrificed everything for the safety of our country.
