By Jeffrey Blackwell/Memorial Church Communications

Students from Memorial Church’s Sunday school program collected nearly 400 toys for children in Cambridge and Boston who otherwise might not have presents under the tree this Christmas day.

The toy drive began with the start of Fall Term as part of an annual outreach effort by the Church School to the wider Harvard community. By mid-December collection boxes in the church were filled many times over with new toys, books and games. The Church School children also raised nearly $500 in cash donations in a...

By Jeffrey Blackwell/Memorial Church Communications

On a sunny fall morning, the bell in the steeple of Harvard’s Memorial Church calls worshippers to Sunday services and a flock of sleepy undergraduates, hurried graduate students and long-time congregants begins to file through the doors of the storied sanctuary.

In the midst of conventional University faces are the smiles, giggles, and eye-rolls of chatty young children in the herding tow of parents and grandparents. Each Sunday during the academic term the children, ages 3-15, take part in a...