The Bonnor Program is a nationally-recognized service-based program that works to provide opportunities for students to pursue higher education while also completing service opportunities while in school. The organization is housed out of The Office for Inclusive Excellence (OIE). Yearly, the organization partners with the Butler Salvation Army and their Angel Tree initiative to hold an event called The Elf Project. Sara Morar a senior criminology, criminal justice and political science major is currently planning this event as her capstone project. Every year The Bonnor Program receives tags with children’s wishlists on them, and they then work to find donors to shop for a child on the tag. This year, the organization has 75 tags. “We basically organize this event. Last year, we had therapy dogs come in. We usually do raffle baskets to kind of incentivize donors, but before we have that event, our program does a lot of the planning, a lot of the communications and advertising for the event. So we’re sending out emails, trying to get people to participate and we have been trying to get visibility: get people to participate,” Morar said. On December 9 from 9 a. m. to 3 p. m. in the Smith Student Center Theater, the organization will hold an event to collect the donations. At the event, students can participate in other activities to help. “In previous years, we have done card making for veterans and nursing home residents. For our program, members in the program are students, and for our service requirement, we’re placed in organizations or areas in the community, and that’s basically where we do our service. One girl was at an organization called Don’t Stop Dreamin’, and I believe it was for elderly residents. And so she was like our correspondence with that organization; we would make the cards and we would give them to her and she would hand them out to the residents, so it was always really neat,” Morar said. If individuals and organizations are interested in sponsoring a child, individuals can email bonner@sru. edu or register through their Rock Serve page. “It’s still free for students to come and enjoy the activities, participate. Usually we allow students to participate in the raffle baskets by making cards. for each child they sponsor, they get a certain number of tickets they can use for the raffle baskets. But students, if they make a certain number of cards, then they can also get tickets so that they can participate and feel included. And we usually have refreshments and snacks and music, and just try to promote holiday cheer and the spirit of giving,” Morar said. Part of Morar’s capstone project is to find an organization on campus that is willing to take on this project and host this event every year. Morar has spoken to a few organizations about taking on the event. “The second part of my capstone is going to be to create a comprehensive guide, basically detailing every single aspect of planning this event and who to contact, and how to communicate with people so that it’s a very easily-laid-out guide so people can continue this event. It’s a really great thing to do; it’s really good for the community, especially in this day and age with how things are, and everything’s expensive. Being able to give back to the community, especially children, it’s really important,” Morar said. Students can also reserve a tag to shop for a child. “A lot of people, they’ll contact us directly and be like, ‘hey here’s my information, I would like to sign up for a tag,’ and we will send them the child’s information. Or the other way is, people can register for a tag on our Rock Serve page, and then we will see that and we will send them the information. But you can register for that as an individual, as someone from an athletic sport, as an office, as a department,” Morar said. Individuals who register will receive a list with information including clothing, shoe size, or any needs the recipient has. Then individuals go out and purchase those items for the children. Donors will then bring the items to the event during the time slot they have. “I think, overall, it just promotes that spirit of giving back to your community. Even if you don’t have a lot to give, this is something. It’s very easy to collaborate on with people so, like I said, we have departments that do it and we have individuals that do it, and sometimes I’ve seen groups of two or three friends that get one child and split that $125-150 range. It’s really just a fun thing to do; you get to go out go shopping, thinking of this child. and to have such direct contribution is just a great sense of fulfillment,” Morar said. The Bonnor Program would love to work with other clubs and organizations if they want to get involved or have activities they would like to do. The organization also welcomes all at their event.
https://www.theonlinerocket.com/student-life/2025/11/24/the-elf-project-at-sru/
The Elf Project at SRU
