With the holidays rapidly approaching, the spirit of giving is alive and well on campus.Volunteer LSU has put together two separate drives to help raise funds and supplies for local Baton Rouge charity organizations. New and gently used items are being collected throughout November for the Baton Rouge Battered Women’s Shelter and the Ollie Steele Burden Manor retirement home.Donation boxes have been set up around campus to collect toys for children temporarily housed in the women’s shelter. The boxes, which have been decorated and wrapped like Christmas presents, can be found in the Student Union, 459 Commons and Middleton Library.Stella O’Rourke, VLSU youth program chair, said the shelter houses 30 to 40 women and children during the holiday seasons. “We want to brighten their     holidays a little bit because all of them have had a tough time,” O’Rourke said. “These women are looking for homes when theirs aren’t safe, and we wanted to make sure their kids can have presents for Christmas.”After the drive ends and the toys have been collected and wrapped, VLSU will host a Christmas party for the families at the shelter. Volunteers will help set up Christmas decorations and hand out gifts to the children.Student groups and organizations including the NAACP at LSU, Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority and the Sociology Society have all joined forces with VLSU to collect toys.CH2M Hill, a local engineering company, joined the drive earlier this month at the request of Lauren Bailey, another University volunteer. Bailey, who works with CH2M Hill, said she wanted to get local organizations involved with the drive.”We often get wrapped up with our own families and what we want, so it is important to make sure that everyone gets the chance to really experience Christmas,” Bailey said.While toy drives for children are common during the holidays, VLSU is also sponsoring a second drive for the residents of the retirement home. Collecting everything from children’s toys to neckties, VLSU plans to spread the cheer of shopping for loved ones to an often neglected community.Once the gifts have been collected, volunteers will take them to the retirement home, where the residents will be given a chance to shop through the items for their loved ones.”This is an opportunity for the youth to interact with the elderly,” said Anna Normand, civic and social awareness chair for VLSU. “It lets the residents have ownership to pick what they want or what they want to give out for Christmas.”Normand, an Opelousas native, said her hometown, which has done projects like this for the past three years, is also donating to the VLSU drive. Individuals and organizations are sending toys and clothing to Baton Rouge to supplement the items donated in Baton Rouge.—-Contact Adam Duvernay at [email protected]