Organizations such as the Graduate Professional Council and Missouri Students Association are giving back to the Columbia community this season.

GPC is raising money for the Boys and Girls Town, and MSA has adopted a family for the holidays. Both are using funds to put presents under Columbia families’ trees who might not have had any without the extra help.

Neither organization has adopted families or raised money for the holidays before, but both hope to start a tradition of giving back.

The Boys and Girls Town contacted GPC about its Sponsor a Child program. GPC saw it as a way to increase its community service, GPC President Kristofferson Culmer said.

“Everyone was in favor of helping out,” he said.

Each GPC department is sponsoring a child, and each child needs about $50. With such a relatively small cost, each member is contributing one or two dollars to help raise funds.

“We want to emphasize the point that it only takes a little bit from everybody to do a lot,” Culmer said. “A few dollars can go a long way in sponsoring a child.”

GPC decided to help Boys and Girls Town only a few weeks ago, but Culmer said the effort to raise money is going well.

“Hopefully this will be a program that we continue in the future, so we can start preparations sooner,” he said.

Grace Haun, MSA Campus and Community Relations Committee chairwoman, said MSA decided to adopt a family after the group received an email from a voluntary action center saying it needed more sponsors.

“I thought it would be a good idea, and I thought that people would like doing it,” she said. “I wanted to do it.”

MSA President Eric Woods said he hopes MSA’s contributions will make the adopted family’s holiday a little brighter.

“What I hope happens is that we’re able to kind of take some of the pressure off of the mother in terms of providing a good Christmas for her family,” he said. “We drew a single mother with two children, so we wanted to be able to help her in any way that we can, kind of give her family a special Christmas.”

MSA is collecting money to buy a gift card to a grocery store and for presents for the children in the family.

“(The gift card) pays for Christmas dinner,” Haun said.

The MU Bookstore has also donated items for the family. The money raised for these gifts is coming from individual MSA senators.

“People were very generous,” Haun said. “We raised a lot of money.”

Like GPC, MSA hopes to continue donating to families in upcoming years.

Culmer said his experience has proved how easy it can be to help someone in need.

“A lot of (these kids), in their wish lists, say things like ‘Socks with no holes in them,’ ‘Underwear,’ you know, just (nice) clothes,” he said. “It’s very heartbreaking. These are kids that have gone through a lot, so just a little bit of (money) can potentially go a long way.”