DECA is a club at Arrowhead that focuses on business and marketing while participating in community and competitive events. Operation Christmas Child is their most recent community event.

The Operation Christmas Child event is now over but here’s a recap and what happened throughout the last two weeks. 

Operation Christmas Child is an outreach event through Samaritan’s Purse. Samaritan’s Purse is a tax-exempt charity. However, donations are allowed and are posted on the website. The organization is Christian focused, but anyone no matter religion can participate. 

Elena Evans, an Arrowhead junior said it’s important for her and others to participate in this event. 

Evans says, “I think it’s really important, especially at Arrowhead because there’s a lot of kids here that don’t know what happens outside of our Arrowhead district area. A lot of us are gifted with a lot of gifts during Christmas, which is really amazing, but there’s a lot of kids out there that don’t have that opportunity, and this is like a gift of once in a lifetime opportunity that they don’t get every year.”

There was a tracking code as the form of a QR code on each shoebox label that was handed out to each student, and can be scanned to see where your gift is going to. For students that weren’t in the DECA or Marketing classes, labels were placed by the unmade shoeboxes on a table outside of the school store at North Campus.

Elliot Astle, an Arrowhead senior, chose to buy gifts that catered to a boy. He said, “I put a whoopee cushion, and a pen, a journal, and tech decks.”

Those students were in DECA or Business related classes but anyone had the opportunity to participate. Steve Melzer, the DECA supervisor and a business teacher here at Arrowhead said, “It started out with just Marketing and DECA students but this year we offered it to a variety of teachers and students.” 

Operation Christmas Child didn’t just offer the gift of giving back but it also provided other benefits.

Melzer said, “Not only is Operation Christmas child used in the point system to be an active DECA member but it also gave volunteer hours to students who participated in the event.” 

DECA has an active Tiktok and Instagram used to get word out about different events. Social Media for DECA is a huge aspect.

Britney Ebert, an Arrowhead senior said that since the cause for Operation Christmas Child is so important, it’s crucial to get the word out. 

Ebert says, “I briefly heard about it last year and maybe an announcement about it this year. To promote more social media posts would be beneficial, maybe posters on lockers would help promote it for students who aren’t in DECA because then at least one person would see it and word would get spread.”

DECA’s Instagram is linked here for students to follow for updates about other events throughout the year.