Cam­pus Cleanout Yields Siz­able Bounty for Local Charities

By Elise Marie Knable ’09

Junior Kate­lyn Cooper, Wes­ley Chap­lain Dr. Mark Pruett-Barnett and Sopho­more Car­l­lis­tis Obeng are ready to help with the col­lec­tion process.

Stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff of Wes­ley Col­lege are con­tin­u­ally find­ing more ways to be involved with the com­mu­nity through ser­vice projects. As this year’s spring semes­ter came to a close, a cam­pus cleanup and give­away project was ini­ti­ated to allow Wes­ley stu­dents to donate usable items that would typ­i­cally be thrown away and could instead be given to local char­i­ties. Within the span of a week, an esti­mated $10,000 worth of fur­ni­ture, appli­ances, food and house­hold items were col­lected from res­i­dence halls and con­tributed to Good­will and Catholic Charities.

Ear­lene Tol­son and Eve­lyn Ward, two employ­ees from the Ara­mark House­keep­ing staff at Wes­ley, had noticed over the years that stu­dents leav­ing the cam­pus for the sum­mer threw out many things that could be put to good use for fam­i­lies in need. With the College’s com­mit­ment to
ser­vice and the recent decline of the econ­omy in mind, they talked to Susan John­ston, wife of Wes­ley Pres­i­dent Dr. William John­ston, about the waste­ful ten­den­cies of stu­dents and what could be done dif­fer­ently this year to turn the waste into dona­tions that would help the sur­round­ing com­mu­nity in today’s dif­fi­cult times.

With the help of Wes­ley Chap­lain Dr. Mark Pruett-Barnett, Dean of Stu­dents Mary-Alice Oze­choski and Head of Facil­i­ties Chuck Arthur, a plan was put into action for a cam­pus cleanout and give­away pro­gram to ben­e­fit oth­ers less for­tu­nate. “Wes­ley Col­lege sits on the
bor­der of an area in town with a huge eco­nomic need. By shar­ing our resources with the com­mu­nity, we live our val­ues and mis­sion,” Oze­choski noted.

A few weeks before exams, the cleanout pro­gram was pro­moted around cam­pus through notices and emails, and vol­un­teers were recruited to help with the efforts. Stu­dents were asked to save items that they might nor­mally throw out at the end of the year and donate them for this project.
Pruett-Barnett pointed out that con­ve­nience for stu­dents was crit­i­cal to mak­ing this a suc­cess­ful endeavor. Col­lec­tion bins were placed in the lobby of each of the res­i­dence halls, allow­ing stu­dents to eas­ily drop items off while pack­ing up belong­ings in their rooms and before leav­ing for the summer.

The col­lec­tion process began slowly, since most stu­dents were con­sumed with final exams and had not yet packed up to go home in the first few days of the week. “But when Thurs­day and Fri­day nights came around, we got a lot of stuff donated,” Pruett-Barnett said. A vari­ety of items, from canned goods and cloth­ing to rugs and microwaves, were among the dona­tions dis­trib­uted to var­i­ous char­i­ties and second-hand stores around the area.

“I was really happy to be a part of this and help us all be stew­ards of God’s gifts that are given to us and make sure they can still be used,” Pruett-Barnett com­mented. He noted that in the midst of the rush to head home, stu­dents seemed glad to help with the pro­gram by donat­ing things they no longer needed.

Oze­choski not only helped to imple­ment the cam­pus cleanout pro­gram dur­ing the last week of school, but also found an oppor­tu­nity to ramp up dona­tions to the next level. Since the Col­lege already had plans to replace the fur­ni­ture in cer­tain build­ings dur­ing the month of June, she saw this as an oppor­tu­nity to give even more to those in need. “We knew we were going to refur­bish Williams [Res­i­dence Hall] and had ordered new beds, wardrobes, desks and chairs for 123 stu­dents. It seemed like a good way to help the com­mu­nity and recy­cle used but still usable fur­ni­ture,” Oze­choski remarked.

Wesley’s foot­ball team took on the mas­sive job of clear­ing out Williams Hall, which entailed mov­ing 300 pound wardrobes from the third floor. These and other vol­un­teers helped sort the fur­ni­ture and deter­mine what was reusable, then loaded items into a U-haul truck to take to the char­i­ties. “I took a load up to Wilm­ing­ton, a load to Good­will on Route 13 and another three quar­ters of a load to the Good­will on Route 8. This stuff was still good. It wasn’t junk,” Pruett-Barnett remarked. “We were really good about not pass­ing on junk to peo­ple who need stuff.”

The com­bined efforts of Pruett-Barnett, the Ara­mark House­keep­ing and Facil­i­ties staff, the foot­ball team, staff mem­bers from Stu­dent Life and Secu­rity, and the stu­dents that donated items made this first time cam­pus project a suc­cess. “We are all aware of the eco­nomic real­i­ties we are fac­ing. A fam­ily receiv­ing a bunk bed or food or cloth­ing that would have oth­er­wise been thrown away is what the Col­lege as mem­bers of the Dover com­mu­nity ought to be doing,” Oze­choski
remarked.

Both Pruett-Barnett and Oze­choski agree that since this type of ser­vice project is so closely aligned with the mis­sion and goals of the Col­lege, it will be con­tin­ued as an annual pro­gram on cam­pus, and they hope to get even more indi­vid­u­als involved next year. Oze­choski sum­ma­rized, “I hope stu­dents under­stand that when you are inclined to throw away per­fectly good, usable food, cloth­ing and appli­ances, the bet­ter thing to do is to donate them…I hope they see that their unwanted items can have a huge impact on a fam­ily and that in giv­ing, they receive.” W