BATON ROUGE — LSU student-athletes participated in the school’s annual holiday community service event Monday night at the PMAC. Thanksgiving with the Tigers took the place of the annual Christmas with the Tigers event, but continued the giving ways.
LSU sports teamed up with the St. Vicent de Paul shelter to obtain 21 needy kids and their families to adopt for the function. The student-athletes fed a Thanksgiving type meal to needy families, played games with the kids and provided gifts for the kids to take home for the holidays.
“It gives the athlete the chance to look at the children from the shelter and interact with them,” social worker and case manager Diane Johnson said. “It allows them to talk to the kids, tell them about what they do and it may inspire some of the children to be an athlete.”
The athletes decided amongst themselves what gifts they wanted to buy. The children’s joy was evident the second they opened their gifts.
“Each member of my team put in a certain amount of money and we put it all together,” softball senior outfielder Ashley Applegate said. “We had a list that was sent in from the child of what she wanted for Christmas. We went through the list, and my teammates and I got our child a nice bike and helmet. That is what she really wanted.”
The children received gifts such as spider-man and hot wheels bicycles, action figures, Wii video game consoles, boots and a miniature kitchen set.
“We love to help out in the community as much as we can,” senior football kicker Josh Jasper said. “Alex Russian and I have done previous community service events, so we decided to come back, do this and help out. It takes our mind off of some of the football stuff for a little bit. It’s good for us too.”
Each sport had at least two representatives there at the dinner, and more teammates joined the festivities at 7 p.m. to help set up and participate in games on the PMAC floor.
Also, adopting children are the Tiger Girls, Cheerleaders, Academic Center for Student-Athletes, Athletic Trainers, L-Club, and Athletic Administration. Each group or team raised money to buy these gifts.