There is no shortage of Rutgers student-athletes who would agree that
The magic of Christmas is not just in the presents, but in the spirit of giving. Include track & field/cross country runners
Emma Baeyens and
Lillie Widmer as two of the many Scarlet Knights who took part in the annual toy drive during the holiday season.
This initiative, coordinated by Rutgers Director for Student-Athlete Development and Success
Elyse Washington, in concert with the Student-Athletic Advisory Committee (SAAC,) was held in mid-December and began with a toy-wrapping party at the Rodkin Academic Success Center. No less than 243 toys, donated by the Rutgers community with many collected at men's and women's basketball games and wrestling matches, were then distributed to children by Rutgers student-athletes at six local elementary schools.
For Baeyens, this marked the third consecutive year that she's taken part in the toy-wrapping day but the first time she was part of the distribution component. Baeyens and Widmer spent approximately two hours together interacting with several classes at the Tiny Tots Spot Daycare Center in New Brunswick. Baeyens, who is on the SAAC executive board where she also serves as Vice President for Community Engagement, spent a second day handing out toys to kids at the PRAB Early Childhood Center, also located in New Brunswick.
"It's all organized by
Scarlet Knights For Life," said Baeyens, a dean's list student who earned her undergraduate degree in cell biology and neuroscience last May and is presently working towards a Rutgers master's in social work. "At each SAAC meeting there are about two students from each team on hand but for the gift-wrapping meeting SAAC members are asked to bring along a teammate to help out which is great because this is how I first began my association with SAAC a few years ago. It's fun to be with other teammates and get introduced to other athletes.
"The Scarlet Knights for Life staff provide all of the supplies - wrapping paper, scissors and tape," Baeyens continued. "There's Christmas music playing in the background so it's a super fun day. When you're wrapping gifts it's all cool and everything but there's nothing that matches the feeling of actually giving the gifts to the children. It's definitely really special. The teachers know about it in advance but the kids don't really know you're coming so it's a nice surprise."
When Baeyens asked her teammate, Widmer, to join her at the Tiny Tots Spot Daycare Center, the South Jersey native jumped at the opportunity. "I had mentioned to Emma that I was wanting to volunteer and one day she just said "oh there's this opportunity to hand out gifts to kids at a local school and I said, 'that'd be great, I'd really love to do that."
Baeyens and Widmer handed out gifts to multiple classrooms, with the kids ranging in age from fourth to sixth grade.
"When we walked into each classroom we could already see that the kids were super excited to see us. The teachers were also very welcoming," said Widmer, a sophomore from Franklinville, New Jersey where she was a star long-distance runner at Delsea Regional High School. "As soon as they saw that we had gifts for them, the kids just started cheering and laughing and screaming. They were just so thrilled. We had a chance to introduce ourselves and the teachers were really good about explaining what track and field was. It made it feel more personal and the kids were all just saying 'thank you' and you could see just how happy they were. It was just very cute.
"Once we handed the gifts out, all of the kids continued to be so elated. It was definitely a special event to be a part of, just seeing the joy that they were experiencing. It made me feel very happy to play a small part in putting smiles on the kids' faces and to see the joy that it brought them."
At times, Baeyens said, events are held in the same schools where RU student-athletes go for "Read Across America."
"So, it's kind of cool to see the same kids like six months later and see how much bigger they've gotten," said Baeyens. "Some of the kids open the gifts right on the spot and others save them to open up at home which is great too. When you give out the gifts you definitely understand what you're doing and what this is all about.
"At the second school I went to they also had me read to the kids, which was super fun," she added. "The kids are always so excited, they're always so grateful. One of the classes actually sang a Christmas song to me which was fun. So, yeah, it was just a very cool experience."
Clearly the magic of Christmas is not just in the presents, but in the spirit of giving.
A recipient of seven NJ Press Association Awards for writing excellence, John Beisser ('86) served as Assistant Director in the Rutgers University Athletic Communications Office from 1991-2006, where he primarily handled sports information/media relations duties for the Scarlet Knight football and men's basketball programs. In this role, he served as managing editor for nine publications that received either National or Regional citations from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA). While an undergraduate at RU, Beisser was sports director of WRSU-FM and a sportswriter/columnist for The Daily Targum. From 2007-2019, Beisser served as Assistant Athletic Director/Sports Media Relations at Wagner College, where he was the recipient of the 2019 Met Basketball Writers Association "Good Guy" Award. Beisser resides in Piscataway with his wife Aileen (RC '95,) a four-year Scarlet Knight women's lacrosse letterwinner, and their 15-year old daughter Riley.
