UT staff members bustled around craft tables to make 80 fleece blankets at the Thompson Conference Center while laughing, chatting and shouting.
The University’s Continuing and Innovative Education program made the blankets Tuesday as gifts for University Charter School students in the Pathfinders Camp program.
“[People at] tables were screaming and blankets were flying up in the air,” said human resources coordinator Andrea Zabcik. “I think it’s a great thing. I think we should do it every year.”
The UT-sponsored Pathfinders Camp program, conducted by the Continuing and Innovative Education program, are comprised of foster or underprivileged middle- and high-school boys.
The boys attend the wilderness camp, which can serve as an alternative to a juvenile delinquent center.
“They’re so appreciative and humble when they get things like this,” Zabcik said. “The charter school really does a beneficial service for the community there.”
The department normally holds a Christmas party for the staff members but decided to do something different this year.
“We decided this year, that rather than having a fancy party and gifts for ourselves, that we would come together and do something for someone else, and so we called it ‘the season of sharing,’” said Judy Ashcroft, dean of Continuing and Innovative Education.
“We were going to make 200, but there wasn’t enough fleece in Austin, Round Rock, Cedar Park or San Antonio, so we did 80.”
She said the group will most likely put on the event again next year.
“Only, we’ll probably order the fleece over the Internet in bulk,” Ashcroft said.
The committee of 10 staff members wanted to come up with a way to give a gift to the charter school students that could be personal yet uniform at the same time. The idea of blankets came about after a conversation about how quilts often remind people of family and warm memories, Ashcroft said.
“We got the idea of them wrapping [the blankets] around them to remind them of home,” said administrative associate Joy Velarde.
Many attendees said they thought the party was a great way for the whole department to share in the holiday spirit. They said they were grateful to have the opportunity to give back.
“It was really good to have time to get together with co-workers and other people in the division while working on blankets to help out students at charter schools,” said IT specialist Chris Wang. “It was nice to see the division doing something like this.”
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