Space Coast Crew held its annual Christmas party Saturday as the team has a dinner party to celebrate the holidays. After the dinner, the team will wrapped gifts that were brought for the needy children of Creel Elementry School.

“I felt really good at the Christmas party,” junior Vianca Rivera said. ” We all picked an angel off a Christmas tree, and it told us what we were buying some little kid for Christmas. We helped five or six families have a real Christmas, which is an amazing feeling.”

The party is an annual tradition and is usually held at the start of Winter Break in order to give the rowers time to study for exams and to unwind.

“The last thing we want is to get in the way of school,” Coach Heather Rogers said. “Grades are the most important thing for these kids, and rowing is second. Midterms are a time when kids really need to focus and even though crew is important, it can not be a distraction. so we stop completely.”