Student body president Julia Heath talks with another Senate member during SRT. Heath said Senate is currently working on Care to Share.

Senate will be working on Care to Share until winter break.

According to Senate Sponsor Michelle Foutz, Senate is currently waiting to hear back from the Carmel Youth Assistance Program.

“We are waiting on the Carmel Youth Assistance Program to see if they have our matches for Care to Share,” she said. “We need to have time to divide everything up and call the families and confirm sizes and distribute all that information to all the SRTs. We really want to do that before Thanksgiving because generally a lot of the (SSRTS) go out over that long weekend and buy the stuff.”

Student body president Julia Heath said, “We’ll be working on collecting the gifts (from SSRTs) early December and logging them in. Then around the second week of December is when families will come pick (the gifts) up.”

Foutz said that so far COVID-19 has only slightly impacted the working of Care to Share.

“I hope that we can remain in school because (Care to Share) will be impacted if we’re sent home and we don’t have students here for the collections. At this time, (Care to Share) hasn’t been impacted yet (by COVID-19) but we will see.”

Foutz added that despite COVID-19, Senate is still sponsoring roughly the same number of people with Care to Share this year.

According to Heath, there are 98 SSRTs participating in Care to Share this year, with separate cohorts counting as different SSRTs. These SSRTs had the option to sponsor a whole or part of a person and together will sponsor 25 people this year.

Heath said, “Twenty-five is a good amount because we were expecting lower turnout this year because there are less people in each (SSRT). Actually, 25 people is a pretty good number because in the past it’s been about 25-30.”

Foutz said that one minor change has been made to Care to Share this year, though not because of COVID-19.

“The gift card amounts we’re going to make those smaller. Last year all the gift cards were by $50 increments and we thought that was a little bit high because you can divide those out further if you make those smaller. So (this year) we’ve got $25 gift cards so that we can spread them out.”

Foutz also said that any additional gift cards Senate collects will be sent to the Carmel Youth Assistance program, which will then be used to sponsor additional people.