Jen Anima-Valdez
Editor-in-Chief
From Tuesday, Nov. 1 through Friday, Nov. 18 the Future Business Leaders of America Organization (FBLA) held a food and clothing drive that would help students in need who attend Butler.
“Butler has not had a very active FBLA chapter for a while until this year,” Mason Kane, a freshman and sports management major, said. “We have every chapter officer position filled, we are doing community service projects, and traveling to network with other students and industry professionals and competing at competitions. I hope this project helps showcase that we are dedicated to giving back to those who support us.”
Boxes were located in the 600 building, 1500 building, 200 building, the bookstore and the LDS (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) Church located at 120 S Main St. in El Dorado.
The leaders of this drive, Alexia Macleod and Kane, created flyers, called locations where they would allow boxes and put the boxes together, which were donated by the Butler bookstore.
“We are thankful to the bookstore for donating the boxes that we needed as well as Butler campus for letting us put our boxes in the location in our buildings that we have here on campus as well as the LDS Church,” Macleod said.
The idea for this project did not come randomly. FBLA is given a list with requirements they need for the semester and one of them is doing a community service project, which the organization is hoping to do every semester.
This project had already been planned prior to Butler receiving a grant where clothes and food can be bought for those in need.
“The grant helped us build a solid foundation to work off of and to guarantee that we had at least something to donate to the people of Butler and El Dorado,” Kane, also FBLA’s secretary, said.
The food gathered by this project was still able to be donated, but the organization was told to donate to a different place for future food and clothing drives. The Andover campus seemed to be in more need of food pantry items than the El Dorado campus, so the food was taken there.
“With any community service project, you’re helping your community and wanting them to know that not only do clubs, Butler and FBLA support helping communities that their chapters are located in, but letting people know ‘hey, we’re here to help and we want to spread some joy in the world,’” Macleod said.
The upcoming meetings will consist of discussing which project to do next and getting ready for nationals where they will compete against other colleges.
The first week consisted of advertising and getting the word out for people to donate. Donations were slow coming in the beginning, but the second week was full of donations. FBLA gathered a good amount of food items, one box of children’s clothing, one box of men’s clothing and about seven boxes of women’s clothing by the end of the drive.
“Thank you to everyone who donated, and we hope you are willing to help any other community service projects that we have coming forward,” Macleod said.
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