University Baptist Church, 4608 South Hagadorn Road, has kept a holiday tradition going with their “mitten tree” — a wooden tree that collects cards and winter clothing from members of the congregation.

“The cards are our greetings in the congregation to each other,” church secretary Caroline Thurston said. “We take the money that we save on sending out additional cards plus postage to our other congregation members, and put it toward the hats, scarves and mittens that go on the mitten tree and are donated to Haven House.”

Thurston said the congregation is very close and they all see each other often, so refraining from getting cards for each member isn’t a big deal and means more money can be spent on the winter gear to be put on the tree.

“Every person who’s a giver goes and chooses something and there’s no budget set on it. You can choose more than one set if you’d like to put more money in it,” she said. “We try to really fill it up.”

Thurston said one elderly lady who, although not a member of the church, even knits or crochets a dozen hats each year to put on the tree.

“So there are even people outside our congregation who have heard about it and are willing to project their giving spirit this time of year too,” Thurston said.

The event continues throughout Advent before the mittens, scarves, hats and other winter clothing are sent off.

At the East Lansing Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1500 Abbot Road, a tree is displayed to give members a chance to exchange ornaments.

Attached to the ornament is a piece of paper asking the member to purchase a gift card for needy families.

“We’ve identified several families in the community that have just been really struggling with the poor economic times,” Bishop David Rawson said. “So what we did, because we didn’t necessarily know what their needs were, is we put up a tree that had ornaments on it and attached to each ornament was a small piece of paper that identified a gift card from Target or from Meijer or other different stores. Then we had people just go pick an ornament off, keep the ornament as a souvenir, but then (go) and purchase the gift card and then turn those into us.”

The cards are then collected and discreetly distributed to the families.

“It’s just kind of that Christian mentality, that we are striving to be mindful of those in need and trying to bless their lives however we can,” Rawson said.

But the giving spirit expands beyond Christianity — MSU Center for Inquiry, a secular organization, has been running a Toys for Tots drive at Wells Hall since Monday.

“The whole idea was, we wanted to do something that was a public outreach — get involved in the MSU community, give them a chance to get involved too and to show that the holidays are not secularly exclusive,” Toys for Tots Coordinator Ross Grimmett said. “The holidays that we know now and celebrate, like Christmas for example, evolved from secular holidays. They evolved from the solstice celebration and Pagan celebrations.”

Center for Inquiry will collect any unopened toy and will then be donated to the U.S. Marine Corp’s Toys for Tots Foundation.

Christian Orlic, a member of Center for Inquiry, or “friend of the Center,” thinks of this as a great opportunity for secular people to give toward a good cause.

“It’s sort of an avenue for agnostics, atheists, secularists and humanists to contribute to causes that they care about.”

Their event will last until Friday with a drop-off station at Wells Hall.