The American Sign Language (ASL) Club, led by co-Presidents Londyn Travis and Sydney Anderson and advised by ASL teacher Amy Graham, hosted their second annual holiday gift drive between Oct. 31 and Nov. 11.
“The idea is to collect gifts or donations for [people in the deaf community of all ages]–infants all the way through senior citizens–to donate to the Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center so that they can then provide gifts for the deaf community for the holidays,” Graham said.
Travis emphasizes that it is important for the club to make connections with the larger deaf community in the Cleveland area.
“ASL is a big thing in Beachwood, but there are not that many deaf kids in Beachwood anymore, so it’s about reaching out to the community and learning towards a purpose,” she said.
The club placed boxes around the school and in the participating teachers’ classrooms where students could drop off their donated toys. A total of 11 teachers partnered with the club and offered extra credit points for any student who participated.
Graham explained that the paperwork was the hardest part of doing the drive.
“Because it was my first year, it was more [work] than I thought on the front end getting all the permissions from everybody,” she said.
Once the drive was approved, club members reached out to teachers to see who was willing to offer extra credit and spread the word to students to encourage donations.
Graham says that many students are only willing to donate if they receive extra credit.
“[Encouraging] students to donate gifts to kids even if they weren’t doing it for extra credit but just doing it out of the goodness of their heart is something that’s difficult at this point,” she said.
The club managed to collect 75 toys through the drive.
“[Students donated] games for little kids, stuffed animals, puzzles, playdough, barbies… [and other] toys that little kids would be interested in playing with,” Graham said.
Following the drive, ASL students took a field trip to The Cleveland Hearing and Speech Center where they had the opportunity to use their signing skills to communicate with deaf community members and helped them shop for holiday gifts.
Both Graham and Travis feel the drive and the following shopping day was a success, and they look forward to doing it again in the future.
“We are definitely looking forward to doing it next year and hoping that we can provide more time for students too because I think this year was very short of a window of time to collect gifts,” Graham said.
“We were really excited to be able to provide gifts and snacks for those out in the deaf community, and I think it provided an amazing experience for the students,” she said.