Salt Lake Community College’s Black Student Union (BSU) has raised money, supplies, and donations to send relief aid to those affected by Hurricane Sandy. The SLCC group sent nine boxes full of supplies to Queens, New York as part of the relief effort.
The student group does community service every semester. “We had already done a Toys for Tots raffle for Thanksgiving this semester” Glory Stanton, Vice President of SLCC’s Black Student Union said. “But when we heard about the damage and suffering from Hurricane Sandy, we knew this was the right thing to do.”
Many of the BSU students at the College felt especially drawn to help with the relief efforts because they had personally experienced similar devastation during Hurricane Katrina. “We have a lot of students who personally survived Hurricane Katrina,” Stanton said. “So this one hit close to home for all of us.”
Students collected supplies and raised the money necessary to ship them to Brian Piccolo Junior High School MS 53 in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, New York.
“When we started the fundraiser, we just thought we’d do another Toys for Tots fundraiser,” Stanton said. “But we couldn’t get in contact with a distributor in New York. So we had to work really hard to make this work.”
About a week before the students needed to distribute the good they had raised in time for the holidays, Glory Stanton heard Principal Shawn Rux from Brian Piccolo Junior High in an NPR interview. Rux was doing everything he could to help his students, and his story resonated with Stanton.
Shawn Rux has been principal of Brian Piccolo for about a year and he started an incentive program to help what had been a failing school—when he arrived, MS 53 was in the lowest 3 percent of all New York junior high schools. His incentive program worked extremely well—the school’s rating rose from an ‘F’ to a ‘C’, attendance improved to better than 90 percent. Then the hurricane hit. The Far Rockaway neighborhood was one of the hardest hit. Even principal Rux lost much—his car was wrecked, his house flooded.
But principal Rux was determined to help his school and help his students who were hit just as hard. And Stanton knew as soon as she heard his story that MS 53 would make a perfect fit for the work SLCC’s BSU students had done.
So she reached out to principal Rux. And he accepted her offer to help.
The junior high school’s 550 students were sent hats, scarves and other winter clothes, along with some toys. “We had some people provide Build-a-Bear stuffed animals, toys, everything,” Stanton said. “We wanted to be able to provide supplies to help the students, of course, but we also wanted to provide some toys to help their brothers and sisters—their whole families.”
This relief effort is similar to a previous BSU campaign to aid Haiti following the devastating earthquake in that country. In addition to charitable work, the BSU also holds academic and social events, such as film screenings, panel discussions and dances. “Much of our funding came from the dance we had last fall, and every event we have that brings in money goes to benefit a charitable cause,” Stanton said.
“It was really touching being involved with this project,” Stanton said. “The work put in by everyone involved was humbling. You see the best in people this time of year anyway, but to see people reach out and help like this was just amazing.”
The mission of SLCC’s Black Student union is to facilitate academic support and to provide leadership opportunities for Black Student Union Members through tutoring and peer mentoring.
The student group does community service every semester. “We had already done a Toys for Tots raffle for Thanksgiving this semester” Glory Stanton, Vice President of SLCC’s Black Student Union said. “But when we heard about the damage and suffering from Hurricane Sandy, we knew this was the right thing to do.”
Many of the BSU students at the College felt especially drawn to help with the relief efforts because they had personally experienced similar devastation during Hurricane Katrina. “We have a lot of students who personally survived Hurricane Katrina,” Stanton said. “So this one hit close to home for all of us.”
Students collected supplies and raised the money necessary to ship them to Brian Piccolo Junior High School MS 53 in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens, New York.
“When we started the fundraiser, we just thought we’d do another Toys for Tots fundraiser,” Stanton said. “But we couldn’t get in contact with a distributor in New York. So we had to work really hard to make this work.”
About a week before the students needed to distribute the good they had raised in time for the holidays, Glory Stanton heard Principal Shawn Rux from Brian Piccolo Junior High in an NPR interview. Rux was doing everything he could to help his students, and his story resonated with Stanton.
Shawn Rux has been principal of Brian Piccolo for about a year and he started an incentive program to help what had been a failing school—when he arrived, MS 53 was in the lowest 3 percent of all New York junior high schools. His incentive program worked extremely well—the school’s rating rose from an ‘F’ to a ‘C’, attendance improved to better than 90 percent. Then the hurricane hit. The Far Rockaway neighborhood was one of the hardest hit. Even principal Rux lost much—his car was wrecked, his house flooded.
But principal Rux was determined to help his school and help his students who were hit just as hard. And Stanton knew as soon as she heard his story that MS 53 would make a perfect fit for the work SLCC’s BSU students had done.
So she reached out to principal Rux. And he accepted her offer to help.
The junior high school’s 550 students were sent hats, scarves and other winter clothes, along with some toys. “We had some people provide Build-a-Bear stuffed animals, toys, everything,” Stanton said. “We wanted to be able to provide supplies to help the students, of course, but we also wanted to provide some toys to help their brothers and sisters—their whole families.”
This relief effort is similar to a previous BSU campaign to aid Haiti following the devastating earthquake in that country. In addition to charitable work, the BSU also holds academic and social events, such as film screenings, panel discussions and dances. “Much of our funding came from the dance we had last fall, and every event we have that brings in money goes to benefit a charitable cause,” Stanton said.
“It was really touching being involved with this project,” Stanton said. “The work put in by everyone involved was humbling. You see the best in people this time of year anyway, but to see people reach out and help like this was just amazing.”
The mission of SLCC’s Black Student union is to facilitate academic support and to provide leadership opportunities for Black Student Union Members through tutoring and peer mentoring.
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