Students often hear that their third-hour class is participating in “Adopt A Family”, but how many people know the roots of Adopt a Family? Adopt a Family is an ongoing tradition at South where each third-hour class is given to a family from the northern end of Grosse Pointe. The classes can choose whether they want to take on the task of donating to a family on their own or with another class.

The Adopt a Family organization receives participation from many members of Grosse Pointe, but at South, it is run through the club Student Association. Within the Student Association, there are two student chairs for this event each year that help Adopt a Family run smoothly. This year one of the chairs, Olivia McMillin ’25 has set a few goals that she hopes to achieve while being chair.

“I hope to see more participation and involvement from all third hours this year,” McMillin said. “I also hope we can get back to as many families as possible similar to how many industries in the community offer and give some sort of donation to our committee.”

Lucy Stidham ’25, the second chair of Adopt a Family, also hopes to see more involvement from the third-hour classrooms. According to Stidham, their main goal is to bring holiday spirit to families in need.

“Our plans for this upcoming Adopt-A-Family are to involve as many classes as possible and provide for as many families as we can,” Stidham said. “Some changes we plan to make this year would be to get more participation throughout the school.”

Last year, Adopt a Family was successful due to the large participation from the school. Last year’s chair, Addison O’Keefe ’24 believes that the Christmas spirit was kept alive through this committee.

“Last year Adopt a Family went well. We got a lot of classes to participate and were able to provide gifts to over 30 families,” O’Keefe said. “I think this is a great way to give back to our community and help keep the Christmas spirit alive.”

This committee takes a lot of time and effort, but O’Keefe along with many others is more than willing to put in this effort because it is going to a good cause. O’Keefe’s advice to the upcoming chairs is to stay ahead and organized.

“I wouldn’t change anything for next year but I would tell them to prepare for the week before we deliver the gifts,” O’Keefe said. “There are a lot of last-minute things that have to be checked and this organization can get stressful.”

McMillin became a chair for this good cause because she wanted to be a part of the leadership that gives back to the community during these holiday times.

“I was motivated to be a chair for this committee because I wanted to take the opportunity to be a leader and make this committee have a better experience in the future to help spread the Christmas spirit around Grosse Pointe,” McMillin said.