Stu­dent Coun­cil Or­ga­nizes Canned Food Drive

MISHAWAKA—The Un­der­class Stu­dent Coun­cil Of­fi­cers have or­ga­nized a canned food drive com­pe­ti­tion de­signed to in­volve stu­dents in the Thanks­giv­ing sea­son by giv­ing back to the com­mu­nity. 

Lacey Bark­dull, a sopho­more art ed­u­ca­tion ma­jor, is the cur­rent pres­i­dent of the Un­der­class Stu­dent Coun­cil. 

“It was all Kobe Hick­s’s idea,” said Bark­dull. “And we all jumped aboard be­cause it was a great idea, be­cause usu­ally Thanks­giv­ing is over­looked com­pared to Christ­mas.” 

Do­na­tions will be ac­cepted through Nov. 22, and it is hoped that stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff will all par­tic­i­pate. How­ever, the com­pe­ti­tion por­tion of the food drive is for stu­dents only; boxes for do­na­tions can be found in each dorm and in the com­muter lounge.  

“It’s al­ways good to give back to the com­mu­nity,” said Bark­dull. “Frankly, the com­mu­nity we live in is­n’t do­ing the great­est com­pared to oth­ers.” 

The win­ning dorm, or the com­muters, will re­ceive $100 to be spent how­ever they please; sug­ges­tions in­clude a pizza party or a dough­nut party.  All do­na­tions will be given to a lo­cal food bank. 

“I came up with mak­ing it the com­pe­ti­tion to put more ef­fort into the stu­dents,” said Bark­dull. “If there’s a lit­tle in­cen­tive, like the com­pe­ti­tion, more peo­ple are into giv­ing.” 

Fac­ulty and staff mem­bers can place do­na­tions in boxes lo­cated in the fol­low­ing build­ings: the Aca­d­e­mic Cen­ter, the Huff­man Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, the Ever­est-Rohrer Build­ing, the Sci­ence Build­ing, and Wiekamp Ath­letic Cen­ter. 

Bark­dull says that this is the first canned food drive that she knows of Stu­dent Coun­cil or­ga­niz­ing, and she hopes it will re­turn in the fu­ture. 

“I want to be able to show the dif­fer­ence that the stu­dents made through the cans,” said Bark­dull. “I’m hop­ing that if they see how big of a dif­fer­ence it made in other peo­ple’s lives that it will make them more ea­ger to help out next year.”