Service drive honors Martin Luther King Jr.
Utah State University students took “A Day On! Not a Day Off” for service in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Monday.
“It was amazing how much area the volunteers were able to cover in such a short amount of time, and the amount of donations they were able to collect,” said Brittney Davis, who organized the Brigham City drive and is a graduate of USU in business management.
Volunteers were able to collect a car-full of pop cans to be recycled, and two vans filled with newspapers, hygiene products, clothes, toys and 2,073 pounds of food.
More than 90 volunteers, many of them USU students, participated in the service drive. They were divided into teams and assigned a portion of Brigham City to go door-to-door and collect items to benefit different causes.
Newspapers gathered were given to the local community center where proceeds of the recycled funds will go to the Meals on Wheels program. Aluminum cans were given to the local Boy Scout Troop so they can be recycled into usable funds. The donated toys will be sent to a Russian orphanage. Clothing and hygiene items end up with the Cache Valley’s Community Abuse Prevention Service Agency (CAPSA). Nonperishable food will benefit the people who seek help through the Box Elder Community Pantry.
Teams that gathered the most items were awarded Boys and Girls Club T-shirts.
Last but not least, a booth was set up at the Lincoln Center after the drive for those in the community who desired to register themselves as organ and bone-marrow donors.
Before volunteers were sent out to find donations, a short address was given by Dinice Maiden, whose father was the president of the Illinois NAACP and whose high school years were during the civil rights movement.
Maiden, who was raised in Decatur, Ill., said that while she was growing up as a person of color she didn’t realize she was considered underprivileged or poor until later years in her life as she encountered racism and learned about issues across the country.
“Prejudices are taught to children,” Maiden said.
Davis, the co-coordinator of Project Learn of the Boys and Girls Club said having the project on Martin Luther King Jr. Day demonstrates diversity working together toward common goals.
“One of the main messages we are trying to send is that people of all different cultures, ethnicities, faiths and backgrounds can be united through service,” she said.
The service drive was made possible with the aid of a grant that Davis and Ericka Olschewski, who is also a co-coordinator of Project Learn of the Boys and Girls Club, were awarded by the Corporation for National and Community Service, the same corporation over Americorps and Senior Corps.
“We aren’t allowed to release the amount of the grant, but it is enough to aid seven months of service projects,” said Olschewski, who is a sophomore majoring in psychology at USU.
Other projects designed to serve the community’s educational, environmental, and public safety needs will also be funded by the grant, such as a mentoring program for youth, adult education catered toward the Hispanic population, and the assemblage of hygiene items to be sent to Ethiopia.
Some of the clubs and organizations that contributed to the Martin Luther King Jr. Day project were:
* USU Big Band Swing Club
* Brigham City Boys and Girls Club, their family members, mentors and ELETES (a volunteer group)
* Brigham City Youth Volunteer Council
* National Conference for Community Justice
* Presbyterian Youth Group from Brigham City
* Sigma Chi Omega from Weber State University
“I had a lot of fun going door-to-door,” said Tiffany Waldron, a senior majoring in social work and member of the USU Big Band Swing Club.
Waldron said she discovered that the community was happy to help.
“I noticed that we were looked at skeptically when people first opened their doors, but their expressions changed after they realized we were there for a good cause,” she said.
Belinda McElheny, warehouse manager of the Box Elder Community Pantry, said the pantry gets busier during the winter season especially after holidays; however, the amount donated by the drive on Monday will feed those who come to the center for four days.
“I think [the donated food] will make quite a bit of difference to the community,” McElheny said.
McElheny said she gives thanks and appreciation to all of those who took the time to help the pantry.
“We’ve been very blessed with the amount of volunteers we’ve received,” she said.
-doantn@cc.usu.edu