371 Reasons to Smile

On Friday, November 4^th at 7:30pm 50 plus Elmira College students assembled to wrap shoeboxes with Christmas wrapping paper. The next Friday, November 11^th at 7:30pm in the Dining Hall, about 50 students came out to stuff 365 shoeboxes full of Christmas goodies for children all around the world that wouldn’t normally receive a Christmas present. These shoeboxes were filled with items such as coloring books, crayons, notebooks, toys, stuffed animals, toothpaste, toothbrushes, wash cloths, bar soap and other valuable items for a child living in poverty. It seems a little early for Christmas, however, this has never been an excuse to the merchandise industry in America that starts selling stockings and candy canes before Halloween is over. So for the Elmira College students this is not an adequate excuse either!

Wrapping shoeboxes? That seems strange. Then again, presents come in all shapes and sizes! These two Fridays have begun a nationally and internationally known organization called Operation Christmas Child (OCC). OCC is an organization that has different groups of people (ie: college students, church groups, school groups, etc) come together to wrap shoeboxes with Christmas wrapping paper and stuff the boxes with goodies for children all around the world. These packages are sent to children in poverty stricken and war torn nations such as Haiti, Panana, Bosnia and Croatia. For a number of these children, this may be the first Christmas when they receive a gift.

Since 1993, OCC has collected over 86 million shoe box gifts to children in more than 130 countries. Some of the key places these shoe boxes have been sent in the past year include young earthquake victims in Haiti (2010), school children who were attacked by terrorists in Russia (2004), kids in Uganada who were devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic (2002). OCC has also reached many children in the Middle East, including Iraq and Lebanon, as well as in the war torn nation of Sudan.

The Elmira College community has come together in order to make Operation Christmas Child possible. Every year Elmira College’s Christian Fellowship hosts this event along with the generous help and support of many other clubs and sports such as LISP, Red Cross Club, Rotaract, Circle K, Lion’s Club, T.E.A.C.H. and Varsity Women’s Field Hockey. Red Cross Club raised money in order to buy stuffed animals and T.E.A.C.H. made rag dolls to fill these boxes. Many administrators and faculty have been extremely supportive in their donations, in particular, Hollie Synder. Hollie is connected with the Operation Christmas Child donation center in Big Flats and has been a huge support in terms of OCC’s effect on campus.

I have been so excited to be a part of this project and it is so great to see that even though American citizens are protesting through Occupy Wall Street and many are left without jobs, people are still donating to this wonderful cause. It breaks my heart to think that children around the world will wake up on Christmas and not receive a present. I feel so fortunate that I have always been able to find a present under the tree with my name on it when Christmas morning comes. Many privileged college students have never even second guessed their ability to receive a present on Christmas, and a lot of Elmira College students are excited to selflessly give Christmas to children they don’t even know. One EC student has told her friends to donate to OCC instead of getting her a Birthday present. It is clear that the message of Operation Christmas Child is alive on this campus and throughout the area. People can connect to this project and are excited to give Christmas to children all around the globe!

What’s the deal with this Mark Twain guy?

To say that I have been living, eating, sleeping, breathing Mark Twain for the past four weeks of college would be a huge understatement. As a sophomore at Elmira College who reigns from the Greater Hartford area of Connecticut, I simply cannot avoid Mark Twain. (Side note: Mark Twain lived in Hartford, CT the majority of the year and spent his summers in Elmira, NY.) I jokingly say that I am “a Mark Twain stalker” to the visitors but I swear I did not choose Elmira College because of the Mark Twain-Elmira/Hartford connection. I just love purple. As a Mark Twain Ambassador I have spent a good amount of time sitting in the Mark Twain Study and Mark Twain Exhibit and learning through visitors about their love for this famous writer and humorist. I’ve met people who come from Washington (like the state, not D.C.), Australia, Alabama and many other places all over the country and world. One woman from Australia said that her great grandfather cut Mark Twain’s hair!

At some point in your experience at Elmira College you are probably going to ask yourself, “What is the deal with this Mark Twain guy? Why does Elmira College obsess over Twain so much? Why do we read so many of his novels in Freshman Writing?” At first his connection may seem totally random but after a closer look at Mark Twain’s (aka: Samuel Clemens) life the answer makes sense. Here are a few factoids about the Elmira College/Mark Twain connection:

• Samuel Clemens wife, Olivia Langdon lived in Elmira, NY for a majority of her life. Her family owned property-known as the Langdon mansion- over on the corner of Church Street and Main Street (where Subway and Elmira Business Institute are now located).

• Samuel Clemens, Olivia and their three girls Susy, Clara, and Jean would spend their summers in Elmira at Olivia’s sister, Susan Crane’s house called Quarry Farms. Quarry Farms was a dairy farm where Susan had about 200 cows and distributed milk.

• Susan built the Study for Mark Twain in hopes that the Clemens family would extend their stay at Quarry Farms during the summer. The Study allowed Mark Twain to have a quiet retreat to write and smoke. Twain averaged about 30 to 40 cigars a day! It’s a miracle Twain never got lung cancer! Some say that Susan built Mark Twain the study so that he would stop smoking in her house.

• Twain’s wife, Olivia was a member of the Elmira College class of 1864. Olivia’s father, Jervis Langdon was one of the first trustees of Elmira College (basically he was a wealthy man who believed in Simeon Benjamin’s dream of starting a college that gave an equal degree to woman and men). You could say that Jervis was one of the reasons that Elmira College began. Maybe we should be singing a Mountain Day song about him!

• The Mark Twain Study was moved from Quarry Farms to Elmira College campus in 1952. No, Mark Twain did not write The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer on EC’s campus overlooking The Puddle. The original location of the study up at Quarry Farms looked over the city of Elmira and the Chemung River, which reminded Twain of his boyhood on the Mississippi River and inspired him to write about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Dr. Ida Langdon (Samuel Clemens’ niece) was an English Professor at Elmira College and gave the Mark Twain Study to the college in 1952.

So there you have it! Mark Twain Sparknotes version. If this has not satisfied your appetite for this famous American author visit the Study or the Exhibit on campus!