At 7:45 am last Saturday (Dec. 8), I found myself in my car heading downtown with four intrepid senior girls in tow. Nu, Laney, Amy, and Gracie had all given a most precious gift to the Ojai Community — a gift of their time and energy — to support families in need. Fueled by holiday cheer, dedication to service, and a Starbuck’s latte, they were ready to lend a hand to Ojai’s Holiday Adopt-A-Family program, an organization that distributes food and holiday gifts to low-income local families. We arrived at about 8:00 and set right to work. Gracie and Laney stayed at the gift collection and distribution center, helping lift and store numerous boxes brimming with donated gifts and food items, categorizing and labeling them for easy distribution later in the week. Nu, Amy and I piled back into the car, heading to the Ventura Target. Our mission was two-fold: 1) finish up the shopping for the family that Thacher “adopted” with the money earned by selling pizza at a Tuesday night 9:30-10:00 snack bar and 2) to purchase gifts and food for five families on the Adopt-A-Family unassigned family list. During the ride down to Ventura, Nu and Amy developed a plan, calculating the amount of money they had to spend per family and brainstorming about gifts to facilitate the process. We had a brief team huddle by the shopping cart storage area and then broke out to complete our assigned tasks: the girls tackled the gifts, and I took on getting the food. We reconvened about an hour and a half later, with carts overflowing. Mission accomplished. The girls had chosen very thoughtful and age appropriate gifts. I was so impressed with the care that they took with each one. The next challenge was fitting it all into the back of my car! Once that was complete, we headed back to the distribution center to drop it all off and collect Laney (Gracie had been picked up a little earlier for another adventure). All told, the trip took about four and a half hours, a significant amount of time given the demands of a Thacher schedule; however, all the girls claimed it flew by. They were so caught up in the joy of providing for others that they barely noticed the time. Times like these remind me of the immense capacity for good work and authentic service that we have here on campus. It was such a wonderful way to spend a morning. I can’t wait until next year.