To spread the holiday spirit of giving, the College of DuPage has fostered an atmosphere of camaraderie by inviting the public to create blankets for those served by the COD Fuel Pantry.
This past Tuesday, students and staff gathered outside the SRC cafeteria to help prepare several fleece blankets, whose components were readily cut with slits at the edges to be tied securely to other similar layers.
Ana Garcez, a construction management major at College of DuPage, was inspired by the event’s heartwarming spirit and invited her friends to come join her.
“I heard about the event about a week ago,” she said. “I thought it was a good initiative from the college. It’s a nice environment. You can see a smile on people’s faces.”
The cause is one of many charitable initiatives COD has hosted this season, alongside a coat drive and a gift card drive. It is sponsored by Sodexo, College of DuPage’s campus dining services manager, which provided $2,500 to support the Fuel Pantry’s initiatives.
With staple grocery prices on the rise, the Fuel Pantry has seen a significant increase over the past year in the number of students they serve, from tens to hundreds per month.
Rachel McKay, an advancement services coordinator at the College of DuPage, explained how the cause has become a COD tradition meant to positively impact the COD community.
“This is our third year [hosting this],” she said. “We were looking for ways to give back during the holidays, and we thought about other agencies like non-for-profits in our area. However, we thought it’d be better to give to our students internally through the Fuel Pantry.
“We partnered with Linda Kozlowski in the Food Pantry,” said McKay, “and she and our department decided that the making of the blankets was a good way to interact with the students, staff and faculty as well as help the Fuel Pantry for their Day of Giving [the following day] where all of the students and their families will get one of these blankets that we make today.”
Students and staff were also invited to donate money or nonperishable food to support the mission of the Fuel Pantry alongside creating blankets. Garcez felt both empowered and fulfilled in being able to give back to the community with these simple but meaningful acts of kindness.
“I feel that I have a purpose, I feel that I have power,” she said. “Even if it’s small, I still have power to change people’s lives [positively].”
She made mention of how the cause not only allowed her to give back, but also rekindle some friendships, and meet new people. McKay mentioned that forming positive social connections was another intended purpose of the event. She also pointed out some challenges she faced in preparing for the event as a major facilitator, primarily in gathering and providing ready-to-use material.
“One challenge I encountered early on was finding enough fleece material to buy to cut the slits and prepare them for this event,” she said. “It was a lot of driving around looking for fleece material and then ordering the rest online. Several orders were canceled, and some were reordered, so it was just hit or miss even trying to get everything here.”
“The second challenge—which was equally hard—was trying to get all the fleece material cut prior to the event because they need to be cut in certain sizes and all the slits need to be made prior to this event,” McKay recalled.
McKay acknowledged the volunteer efforts of COD Student Life, COD Institutional Advancement and the Fuel Pantry in cutting the fleece material, noting that some volunteers even took supplies home to prepare.
COD Cares will host a Gift of Giving Send-Off on Tuesday, Dec. 10 between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. in SRC 2000 and invites students to drop off donation gifts, participate in community service and enjoy hot cocoa.
