In 1994, Georgia Southern’s first Holiday Helper Tree program was introduced to assist three area agencies create some Christmas cheer for about 250 local children.

On Monday, 30 years later, the annual charity drive’s founder – Eileen Sconyers Smith – helped officially light the Holiday Helper Tree effort that will help 20 agencies and about 650 children in 2024.

“We have a lot of work to do here folks,” Smith said Monday inside the university’s Russell Union Rotunda. “We got a lot of people to help this holiday. Over the years it's been such a joy for me to watch how our faculty and staff and students on this campus just show an outpouring of love to the community. We just know that that's what Eagle Nation is all about.”

In the past, pieces of paper with a child’s name and their help agency were attached to the Christmas tree that sits in the Russell Union. Students, faculty and staff would go up to the tree and take a slip. For the past several years, all the tags have a QR code that, once scanned, goes to a website that will show the name of the child and which agency to direct a Christmas gift for that child.

Smith retired last year after working 33 years in the university’s Department of Sociology & Anthropology, but she returned Monday to offer encouragement and to light the 2024 Holiday Helper Tree with Dr. Jane Marrero, first lady of Georgia Southern.

“I think about that holiday song: ‘It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,’” Marrero said Monday. “It is, but it's also a very hard time of year for a lot of people. As we go into the holidays and we're reminded of all the blessings and gifts that we get to enjoy, let us all remember there are people that could use a little help. So, I encourage you to pull a tag from that tree.”

Presented by the Office of Leadership and Community Engagement, the virtual Holiday Helper Tree is open now in the main lobby area of the Russell Union Commons through Dec. 6 for individuals to pull tags and ship their gifts. Tags on the physical trees will include the QR code to pull a tag on the virtual tree.

For more information and to pull a virtual tag on the tree, visit: https://students.georgiasouthern.edu/LeadServe/hht/