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Students assemble, donate 2,000 hygiene kits as part of E-Week

April 8th, 2011 Posted in Arts and Life

By Heidi Hansen

LOGAN—USU students assembled around 2,000 hygiene kits for distribution at schools in Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala by noon Wednesday as part of a service project for the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business’s E-Week.

“By giving of our time, we give part of ourselves to help others to live better lives,” said Justin Allred, Service VP for the Business Student Council and organizer of the service project. “This world would be a much better place if more people understood and believed this principle.”

“We had enough materials to put together 600 full kits, and then were able to put together another 1,000 to 1,500 partial kits,” said Allred, 24. He added that he’s not sure how many students helped, but other volunteers estimated around 200-300 students participated during the three-and-a-half hours tables were out.

To make it convenient for students to participate, tables were set up around campus where students could stop on their way to class and assemble a kit or two with the help of volunteers.

But if students heard about the service project beforehand and were planning to participate in the afternoon, they were too late. By 11:30 a.m., supplies were gone and boxes of hygiene kits and tables were being loaded into the back of a truck.

“I expected this to go on till about 3 p.m.,” said Carly Morrison, a marketing and economics junior staffing a table on the Quad. “But the response has been overwhelming, I’m shocked that it got done this fast.”

Lisa Tobias, who graduated from USU in December, helped with marketing for the service project and said it was great to see such a positive response. “I appreciate that people stopped and volunteered their time to help us with this,” she said.

Each hygiene kit contained a comb, soap, toothbrush, toothpaste and a towel. In total, 5,000 combs, 2000 toothbrushes and toothpaste tubes, and 600 hand towels and bars of soap will be donated to the Central American schools. The supplies were provided by Charity Anywhere and LDS Humanitarian Services.

Though Allred, a senior in finance and economics, originally wanted to partner with other schools and provide school kits, red tape and available resources made it easier to make hygiene kits. Allred was pleased with how smoothly things went, mostly due to great volunteers, he said. He was happy to give service to students who are less fortunate.

“We are able to attend a university and obtain an education that will help us throughout the rest of our lives,” Allred said, explaining why he feels it’s important for USU students to participate in service. “There are others in this world who don’t have the same opportunities that we do.”

TP

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  1. One Response to “Students assemble, donate 2,000 hygiene kits as part of E-Week”

  2. By Income Instruments on Apr 18, 2011

    Students are more likely to help because they are not so stressed with all day problems but is this really the things those states need. When those tried to governance them self US sent troops and got all the natural resources from them…

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