MSOE cares with blankets, infant supplies, and culturally sensitive food
| Published: 09/09/2005 |
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Blanket and infant supplies
On Wednesday, Sept. 7, MSOE students bound, packaged, and boxed blankets and infant supplies for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. As they packed the blankets, pillows, and infant wear, our students stuffed notes of encouragement and support into every bundle. We will continue our blanket and infant supplies drive until the need is met.
Water purification packets
4:30-5:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 9
Student Life & Campus Center, 1025 N. Broadway, floor 3, Multipurpose Room
On Friday, Sept. 9, students are assembling water purification packets - single use chemical units with basic, easy-to-read instructions for purifying one gallon of water. In this endeavor we are cooperating with the Water for People Emergency Relief of the American Waterworks Association.
On site contact: Dr. Sam Scheibler
Food drive, including culturally sensitive selections
Wednesday also marked the beginning of a food drive in cooperation with Second Harvest of Milwaukee. Empty boxes were given to student groups in a challenge "to fill them, drop them off, collect another box, and fill them again." The goal is to collect 60 boxes by Friday, Sept. 16. Each Wednesday through the end of this crisis we will be sorting, packing, and sending canned goods.
As a campus with a global commitment and deep cultural sensitivity, our food drive reflects our sincere concerns and commitments. While any life-sustaining nutrition is important to our nation's internal refugees, much of the food flowing south is not part of the normal diet and custom of the recipients. Our students are collecting food that not only sustains, but also nurtures -- canned fruits (especially canned citrus), tinned meats, canned tomatoes, canned red beans, etc. The Office of Servant-Leadership is assisting the Muslim Student Association in preparing boxes of halal foods (foods prepared within strict Islamic dietary guidelines) with Arabic assurances of purity for those American followers of Islam displaced and dispossessed by the floods. The Catholic Student Association is assisting in like manner in preparing boxes of kosher foods for Jewish Louisianans.
The campus community
These student groups cooperating in this effort include officially recognized clubs as well as small groups that chose to cooperate on this project such as dorm floors or "the group that watches Wheel of Fortune together." The range of participants includes: the Catholic Student Association, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, the Muslim Student Association, the Liberal Student Organization, College Republicans, the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, the International Student Association, MAGE (a gaming organization), SAGA (Straight and Gay Alliance), the Student Union Board, the Student Nurses Association, and the Orthodox Student Association. They are drawn to help by a common concern for those that have lost everything.
As they demonstrated earlier this year in their immediate and overwhelming support for the victims of the Asian tsunami, MSOE students are a breed apart.
For more information, contact Dr. Samuel Scheibler, MSOE's Pieper Family Endowed Chair for Servant-Leadership and Distinguished Lecturer in General Studies, (414) 277-2269, scheible@msoe.edu.