The generosity Wiscasset High School’s students and staff have shown this holiday season will make a difference beyond the gifts they donated, a representative for Maine’s Army National Guard said.

In an interview and at an assembly Friday afternoon, Master Sgt. Barbara Claudel said the donations will show the military family they go to that people were thinking about them.

“This is what Christmas is all about,” Claudel told the school at the holiday assembly. “We just feel really blessed that people like you are there to support us.”

The donation of several dozen presents continues a tradition the school began a few years ago to help military families, and coincides with the school’s longer tradition of making donations to local families in need.

This year, two local families received holiday meals, as well as other food and gift certificates, Wiscasset High’s technology coordinator and student council adviser Deb Pooler said.

The donations to the military family each year are done through the “Christmas Across Maine” program.

Next April, plans call for Pooler, Student Council President Ridge Barnes and Vice President Kayla Gordon to attend a formal tea at the Blaine House. Maine’s first lady Ann LePage throws the annual event for participants in the program, Pooler said.

The program helps the military in its continuous effort make sure that soldiers and their families have what they need and are ready if the soldier goes on deployment, Claudel said.

It can be hard for a family to ask for help with the holidays, so sometimes a soldier’s leader puts in the request, with the family’s permission, she said. “Christmas Across Maine” helped a total of 109 families this year, Claudel said.

Claudel expected to meet with a military family later Friday afternoon to pass along the gifts from the school. To know what to get for the family the school adopted through the program this year, students and staff picked tags from a tree on a wall of the main office.

Some of the first students to come in to take a tag are often those whose own families have been through financial struggles, according to Pooler. They understand what the adopted family is experiencing and want to help; the project gives students that opportunity, she said.

Pooler and the student council organize the effort as a school project known as “100 Points of Light.” Council members make the wall tree and the tags, based on a wish list the school receives, Pooler said.

The cause the project supports is an important one, Pooler said. Referring to the school’s slogan at Friday’s assembly, she said: “Each of you is the reason that we are small and mighty.”