Jackie Hoegger, adjunct faculty of marketing, has partnered her marketing and promotions class with Red River Best Chevy dealers, the Professional Fire Fighters Association of Texoma and the city of Houston for Operation Santa Claus: Bikes 4 Kids.

“Operation Santa Claus’ mission is to bring smiles on Christmas morning to less fortunate kids in our Texoma community and those affected by Hurricane Harvey by providing bikes for them to have on Christmas morning,” Hoegger said.

Hoegger’s class project allows juniors and seniors to experience what it’s really like in the marketing world.

“In class we have a personal goal of getting 33 bikes per person. There are 24 of us in class so that’s roughly 800 bikes,” Madison Salvatore, marketing senior, said.

The ongoing project has always had a goal of 800 bikes, or $40,000 in donations. This year, the goal has been doubled to help children and adult victims of Hurricane Harvey.

“We are raising one bike for our backyard and one bike for Houston,” Hoegger said.

The goal for Houston is to help victims of Hurricane Harvey that have lost everything.

“We are even thinking of adults who don’t have transportation. These bikes may become their new mode of transportation,” Christy Carruth, marketing senior, said.

Operation Santa Claus is accepting monetary donations as well as bike donations. The bikes will be distributed by the Firefighters of Texoma and the Firefighters of Houston.

“The bikes will be distributed to Houston on Dec. 4 but we will continue to take donations after that so the firefighters can continue to distribute the bikes,” Tricia Golding, media buyer and event coordinator for Hoegger Communication, said.

All of the proceeds will go to Operation Santa Claus, and Chevy’s Best Dealers is going to match the proceeds received by Hoegger’s class.

“We are trying to spread the word. Our goal is to reach as many people as possible,” Rebecca Aronhalt, marketing senior, said.