ML
Micah Lustig
  • Class of 2014
  • Carmel, IN

Micah Lustig organizes one of nation's largest single-day, on-campus community service events

2013 Nov 26

Micah Lustig of Carmel, IN, will play a pivotal role in keeping alive a 50-year tradition at the University of Dayton that has given an given extra-special Christmas for tens of thousands of children nationwide.

Micah helps lead the hospitality committee, part of the all-student group organizing Christmas on Campus, believed to be one of the nation's largest single-day, on-campus community service events.

Christmas on Campus involves nearly three-quarters of the University of Dayton's undergraduates - about 6,000 students. They help provide Dayton schoolchildren with toys, hats, gloves and Christmas memories they might not otherwise experience. Many of them also "adopt" Dayton schoolchildren and lead them through a winter wonderland of arts and crafts, pictures with Santa, a model train display and much more. Children can make stockings, decorate ornaments and have their faces painted. Local drill teams and dance troupes perform, and Mrs. Claus, Santa's reindeer, Dayton Flyer mascot Rudy Flyer and other characters roam campus. Along with the schoolchildren, University of Dayton students, staff and faculty, and several thousand others bring their families to campus for the festivities. This year's Christmas on Campus will be from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 6. It is free and open to the public. Christmas on Campus started 50 years ago when a group of students simply wanted to get together to celebrate Christmas with their University of Dayton family. The event has caught on with University of Dayton alumni around the country. Brian and Renai Lowry started the first Christmas "off" Campus in St. Louis in 1990 to provide gifts for a needy family at a local homeless center. Now, most of the University of Dayton's alumni chapters hold their own Christmas off Campus events for local children and charities. Twenty-three years later, the results are Christmas celebrations around the nation, bringing University of Dayton alumni closer to their community, each other and, best of all, smiles to thousands of children. For more information on Christmas on Campus, visit http://www.udayton.edu/students/coc/.