Are we helping during the Holidays?

Around this holiday season Dominican offers many different ways that students, faculty and staff can give back to the community. As Natalie had posted earlier, some programs include Adopt-A-Kid and Thanksgiving baskets . Other programs are the NAC (Northern Athletics Conference) Food Drive, Warm Clothing Drive, and the Ronald McDonald Pop Tab Collection.

Each of these programs are great and follow in the Dominican mission...if participated in. This seems to be the main problem for the groups sponsoring these efforts.

Yesterday was the last day for Adopt-A-Kid sign-ups. When I went to choose my children to adopt at 5 p.m., Taylor Eshleman, president of Students Exploring Rewarding Volunteer Experiences (SERVE) said there were still about 100 kids to choose from. She planned on staying at the booth all night, just as long as people kept coming. I ended up adopting a whole family because of how many were remaining.

As I left the booth, I walked past a box for the NAC food drive and noticed it was empty, except for two winter hats. I think the person may have gotten the box confused with the Winter Clothing Drive.

I find this lack of participation in these programs to be disappointing. I understand it is not free and we are poor college students, but is a few dollars to someone in need to much to spare? I don't think it is.