PBH launches annual gift drive

Phillips Brooks House (PBH) will launch its annual Holiday Gift Drive this week, with organizers expecting the drive to bring in more than 1,000 gifts for children and teenagers in Cambridge and Boston.

“I think the Harvard community will probably be as generous this year as they have in the past, if not more so,” said Judy Kokesh, the public service progam administrator for the House and Neighborhood Development program at Harvard College. “Every year we’ve had more departments and more offices call us and say they want to be a part of the gift drive.”

Last year’s record-breaking drive generated more than 1,000 gifts from the Harvard community. The books, games, toys, sports equipment, and art supplies went to 10 agencies in Cambridge, Allston-Brighton, Dorchester, Roxbury, and Boston.

For the first time, this year’s drive will include requests for warm clothing for teenagers living on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. Because temperatures on the reservation often drop well below zero during the winter, hats, gloves, scarves, and parkas size 12 and up are especially needed. Two Harvard undergraduates will drive to the reservation in mid-December to drop off the clothing.

Organizers invite faculty and staff to donate gifts for children in preschool though middle school. Gifts must be new and unwrapped. Gift givers may leave donations in special boxes located in the undergraduate houses, Phillips Brooks House, the Memorial Church, as well as other locations throughout campus.

Those wishing to set up collection centers should call (617) 496-8622 (mbswift@fas.harvard.edu). Donors may also bring their gifts to Phillips Brooks House in the northwest corner of Harvard Yard. The drive, which is under way, ends Dec. 14.