Aggie Rotaract Club is finishing its November clothing drive on Wednesday, Nov. 29 and giving its donations to a local charity.
As one of its several service projects, Aggie Rotaract has been accepting clothing this month for Project Unity, a non-profit organization in Bryan-College Station that hosts several programs for parents, families and those who have been affected by HIV and AIDS.
One program, Texas Families Together and Safe, provides resources including parenting classes, food and basic needs assistance, resources and referrals and supportive counseling, according to the organization’s website.
This has been a successful clothing drive compared to previous years, according to Tamara Jones, president of Aggie Rotaract and aerospace engineering senior.
Jones said this is the first time the organization has given its donations to Project Unity. Unlike other organizations that may re-sell donated clothing, Project Unity gives donations directly to those in need which is why the organization was more attractive for partnership, according to Jones.
“We all need clothes,” Jones said. “We all wear clothes on a day to day basis. It’s just heartbreaking when you see someone who doesn’t have things, and you have extra and you have [and] you can give away.”
The response to a campus-wide email sent by Aggie Rotaract came from many corners of campus, according to Lauren Petersen, Aggie Rotaract vice president and wildlife and fisheries sciences junior. Petersen said an issue the organization faces is having minimal storage facilities, an area she hopes will improve.
“Just the amount of response from the email that I got … I didn’t expect it,” Petersen said. “I honestly thought that maybe we’d get a couple bags of clothes, because that was usually how it kind of went, but something about this year, maybe with the hurricane, I don’t know. We are just overflowing with clothes, so I think storage maybe is something [to improve] for next year.”
Petersen said she wants to take advantage of the contacts and resources she created from this year’s clothing drive to benefit future drives.
“The director of Wehner, the building, contacted me and was like, ‘Hey you know we can get you in touch with people to like advertise over there’ and I was like, ‘Why not West Campus,’” Petersen said. “I didn’t think people would want to go over there to donate clothes, but I was like ‘next year, that’s something I’m going to definitely take advantage of.’”
A major benefit of doing a more community-related project is to see the effects, according to Marcia Benavides, sophomore electrical engineering and Aggie Rotaract project director.
“For clothing drive, we really try to focus on helping the community a lot more, a little more direct,” Benavides said. “We’re working with Project Unity of this year. I just feel like by helping them directly, it’s just making a bigger impact.”
Benavides said a tactic used to make the campaign successful was communication to the A&M community and the cities of Bryan and College Station.
”We tried to spread the word a lot,” Benavides said. “We put up flyers and gave them comfortable times to where we could pick it up, so it’d be easy on them and us as well. We just tried to tell as many people as we could, and it worked.”