10 golden tickets are in COVID care kits — have you picked up yours?
To prepare for the return of Utah State University’s nearly 28,000 students at their Logan campus, vice president of Student Affairs Dr. James Morales and student body president Sami Amed got to work to create COVID Care Kits. They include two Aggie branded face masks, hand sanitizer, a thermometer and information about USU’s pledge to stop the spread of COVID-19.
To encourage students to pick up their care kits, Morales and Student Affairs had Publication Design and Production create golden tickets to be placed in 10 random kits to redeem for a $400 giftcard to the USU Campus Store.
Morales said the idea to put a golden ticket in one of the kits came from a Student Involvement and Leadership member who thought it might make the process fun.
The idea of putting COVID Care Kits together came up during a brainstorming session between University Marketing and Communications and a student life working group who wanted to make student life as normal as possible for the fall semester. It was quickly realized giving students the necessary supplies to excel would encourage them to adhere to guidelines the state of Utah and USU had put in place, such as wearing face coverings, washing your hands and social distancing.
“We are all struggling with wearing face masks and staying six feet apart,” Morales said. “We recognize how important it is to commit to this so we don’t have outbreaks and we can have our in-person experiences we all want. It’s hard.”
To make it more like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and give more students a shot, 10 tickets were put into the kits and randomly disbursed.
“It’s about making it more fun and having the students think, ‘Hey I could win one of these,’ or, ‘I want to win one!’” Morales said.
He wanted to infuse the excitement of winning a lucky ticket into the community and bring some happiness during the “awful pandemic.”
“The main goal here is to help students by giving them the shot in the arm they need and to boost morale in the community,” Morales said.
The tickets are printed on golden paper and read “golden ticket” at the top just like in the film. The back reads “Congratulations, you are the winner of a $400 giftcard to the Campus Store. To redeem your ticket, go to the office of the vice president of student affairs,” which is in the Taggart Student Center, room 220. Once the ticket is shown, the winner will receive the gift card in exchange.
Student Kadie Kunz recently found one of these tickets, which she was unaware of until she found the golden paper in her kit.
“I didn’t even know how to react,” Kunz said. “I went to the office and showed them my ticket. We were all happy.”
Kunz said she played to pay off her textbooks, buy a game day shirt and save the rest for next semester.
Austin Roundy Students wait in line to pick up their COVID care kits in the Taggart Student Center.
In addition to the COVID Care Kits and the golden tickets, students can also head over to https://www.usu.edu/student-affairs/protect to sign the protection pledge to commit themselves to protecting the community and following the guidelines. Dr. Morales has also joined with President Noelle Cockett and Provost Frank Galey to send out emails encouraging students to stay positive and keep following the guidelines.
“We need to remember why we are doing this and that we are all in this together,” Morales said.
Students can pick up the COVID Care Kits from Aggie Health ambassadors the first few weeks of school at the Emma Eccles Jones Education Building, Huntsman Hall, Old Main, Merrill-Cazier Library, Taggart Student Center, Logan Institute of Religion, Aggie Recreation Center, Life Sciences Building, and the Health, Physical Education and Recreation Building, also known as the HPER.
*Updated September 7, 2020
Sydney Dahle is a fourth-year student studying history and political science at Utah State and is currently the Lifestyles Content manager for the Utah Statesman. She hails from St. Louis, Missouri, and spends her free time writing and listening to music.
@dillydahle