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'The greatest gift you can give'
By GAIL HOLLENBECK INVERNESS -- Employees of Citrus High School received an unexpected gift for Christmas this year: a Bible. Each full-time employee found the gift that had been placed in his or her mailbox at the school in the early hours of Dec. 18 by officers of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Rick Keeran, a Citrus High math teacher, coach and staff sponsor for the FCA, said the gift giving was all the students' idea and that the placing of the gifts there had been cleared with the administration. "It was allowed because it was all student led," Keeran said. "The students wanted to do it and they did it all by themselves. All I did was sponsor it." The idea for the project came up at an FCA meeting about a year and a half ago. "We were sitting in my classroom on a Wednesday morning, when we have our meetings, and some of the officers said that they had a vision that they wanted to give each of the staff members a Bible for a Christmas gift. I thought: Okay, that would be nice, but it has to be all student led. And it was all done by them. I had to make out the paperwork for a fundraiser they had in September. Other than that, I didn't have anything to do with it." Keeran said he advised the students at the meeting that it was possible some staff members wouldn't like it and that it would be up to God's will if the idea worked or not. "It was successful," Keeran said. "God blessed it a whole lot." Keeran said all the reactions to the gifts that have been directed to him have been positive. "I have thank you notes; I have e-mails from staff members that talked about how much they appreciate it. Some of them said it's the best Christmas gift they ever received. It's been all positive, even though we had one teacher that went to an administrator and asked why they let the kids do what they did, not that he didn't like it, just that he didn't understand why they let them." The students had raised more than $6,000 to buy 148 NIV bonded leather Bibles, each engraved with the recipient's name. The men received black copies of the large print Bibles, and the women's were blue. FCA members solicited donations from various churches, club president Mike Wilburn said. "We also had individual donations and some private owned companies that contributed," he said. "It was mostly by word of mouth, and we printed up fliers to let people know what we needed." The group raised $300 from a car wash. Youth groups from First Baptist Church of Inverness and First Baptist Church of Floral City saved coins for several months and donated $400. "First Baptist Church of Inverness gave close to $2,000, and then people in the church gave more than that," Wilburn said. "I would venture to say probably half the money we raised came from there." Wilburn and fellow club officers Alex Felton and Doni B. Harrelson are members of that church. The threesome worked on much of the project together. Harrelson, who is the club secretary, said the idea was slow to take off last year but really got going when the school year started in August. "We really took this on as our project and really hit it hard," Harrelson said. "We didn't know if the teachers got a Bible if they would use it, and we know there's some who won't. If they don't want to pick it up and use it, maybe they will keep it and put it on their bookshelf and maybe their grandchildren will see it on the shelf one day and open it up. It will last a long time." Harrelson said that for her, the best part of the project was when all the money was collected. "Whenever we got all the money, it was so exciting to realize that God let us do this. There's no way we could have done it without him. The most fun part was wrapping the Bibles and putting them in the boxes, because it was awesome to see all those mailboxes filled up with wrapped Bibles." Alex Felton, vice president of the club, said the morning they gave out the Bibles was a highlight for him. "I was really excited," he said. "I woke up that morning, like 4 in the morning, and I was probably the most excited I'd ever been, to be part of something so awesome. We wanted to do it to express the love of Jesus in our school and just show the teachers how much Jesus loves them." Wilburn said the gifts were a carefully guarded secret and that it was a complete surprise to the staff members. "As we were putting them in there, some teachers came in and took them to their class. A couple of them came back to say thank you. We had FCA that morning and about four or five came in while we were having the meeting and told the group they wanted to say thank you." Wilburn said he believes the project had a big impact on the school. "I think God's will was accomplished, and a lot of good can come out of it. Even though it might not be now, in the long term it will. The vision was that we would see all the Bibles in the teachers' boxes wrapped, and when we had them all in there, we got pictures in front of it. "It was great knowing they were going to get them and that we accomplished what some people said we might not be able to. Isn't a Bible the greatest gift you can give?"
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