The Faculty of Engineering’s Adopt-a-Family effort raised more than $4,000 in donations for three families identified by the Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Foundation as needing assistance this holiday season.

“Contributing to the Adopt-a-Family is important to us in engineering and it is very much a team effort,” Shelby Marchand, secretary to the dean, said Tuesday as she delivered boxes of clothes, toys, housewares and food to a truck collecting contributions from across campus for the annual charity drive.

In total, University departments and individuals collected $21,610 to benefit 40 local families. The engineering faculty stood out as a new high for the program, said coordinator Mary Anne Beaudoin: “That’s the highest amount I’ve seen in 25 years” heading up the campus campaign.

In addition to the Adopt-a-Family gifts, the faculty purchased $150 in coats, hats, gloves and scarves for a student-run effort on behalf of local homeless shelters.

Volunteer Shelly Scurr, a secretary in the WINONE office, said that joining the charity drive helped put staff and faculty in the holiday spirit.

“It’s a wonderful feeling, just knowing these children are going to have a great Christmas morning,” she said.

The holiday program is a signature project of the Windsor-Essex Children’s Aid Foundation, says interim president Cheryl Sprague.

“The foundation is so grateful to everyone in our community who is able to help us make children’s dreams come true,” Sprague says. “Our partnership with the University of Windsor is a wonderful example of the caring and sharing that so exemplifies the Windsor region.”