While many of us here in the Jacksonville community are celebrating various traditions such as hanging holiday decorations, gathering for family dinners and exchanging gifts, there are a number of families in Guatemala that are thankful once again for one very special tradition coordinated by Dr. George Lauderbaugh, professor of history, and a group of students at Jacksonville State University — the annual Christmas Shoebox Program.

Notebooks, pens, soap and toothpaste might not have made it to the top of your wish list this year, but many community and campus members gathered items such as these for the shoeboxes this year.

To the people of a nation with a large amount of poverty, these items are not small gifts.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Guatemala is one of the ten poorest nations in Latin America.

"The shoebox program was started in the 1990s by Mr. Homer Wilson of Huntsville," explains Dr. Lauderbaugh. "I thought it was a project that JSU students and organizations could support. I asked Phi Alpha Theta, the history honor society and the History Club if they would like to participate."

Dr. Lauderbaugh first heard Wilson speak while attending a meeting of the Alabama-Guatemala Partners, an organization which began forty years ago promoting the understanding and cooperation between the people of Alabama and Guatemala. This organization is a part of a larger international group—Partners of the Americas.

JSU's history students work with Dr. Lauderbaugh as some of the nearly seven thousand volunteers of Partners of the Americas to improve the lives of others less fortunate than themselves. According to this international organization's Web site, the work is completed with the following motto: "We not only dream of a better world, we roll up our sleeves and make a difference."

Beginning the shoebox program in 2003, the history students collected nearly fifty boxes. Each year, more and more sleeves have been rolled up. In 2008, almost five hundred boxes were collected and distributed to families in Guatemala.

Dr. Lauderbaugh says much of the growth of this project has come from the community. Two of the largest donations come from supporters at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School and the First Presbyterian Church of Anniston.

When the program first began, Wilson drove more than two thousand miles from his home in Huntsville to deliver the boxes personally to many open, and empty, Guatemalan hands. This year, Wilson, now more than eighty years old, sent the boxes to Guatemala via containers on a ship.

The Alabama-Guatemala chapter of Partners of the Americas meets twice a year and is involved in several other projects. The chapter also helped to create Viva la Selva, a community library and cultural center in San Andres. According to the chapter Web site, this library quickly became the educational center of the entire community. Viva la Selva is so important to the area that school groups from more than ninety miles away travel in a pickup truck just to be able to spend a few hours reading and learning.

The chance to cross cultures and help people who need items we might consider simple is truly one of the greatest gifts of the season. Thank you to all who participated in this year's shoebox program.

As Anne Frank once said, "How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."

Erin Chupp, a freelance writer for the Office of Marketing and Communications, contributed to this article.