Give-N-Go drive to collect discarded goods

As students pack up a year's worth of books and memories and head back home after finals, they have another opportunity to help those in need in the Tuscaloosa community.

The Community Service Center, Housing and Residential Communities and Sigma Pi fraternity are teaming up for the third annual Give-N-Go drive, which focuses on helping students donate goods to the needy, rather than take them home for the summer.

The Give-N-Go drive encourages students to donate canned goods, clothes, electronics and house wares. Students are also encouraged to donate unwanted furniture, instead of moving it home or paying to have it stored over the summer.

Students can drop off donations in boxes labeled for the drive, which will be located in 11 of the on-campus residence halls. Donations can be made from April 28 to May 10; however, there will be a late pick-up day for students who miss the deadline or decide to donate items at a later date.

The donated goods will be given to the Temporary Emergency Services of Tuscaloosa. TES is a nonprofit organization that helps individuals and families that have experienced a crisis, lost all possessions in a fire, are in need of life sustaining medications, in temporary need of food or are in need of dental work, according to the organization's Web site.

This will be the third year for the Give-N-Go drive, and the first year a greek organization has participated in the drive. Sigma Pi fraternity will help the drive by putting collection bins in all of the greek houses on campus, said Josh Burford, coordinator of the Freshmen Community Outreach.

"We are excited to include greek students living on campus with this effort," he said.

Logan Brady, president of Sigma Pi, said his organization is eager to support families in need.

"Sigma Pi is extremely excited to help out Housing and Residential Communities and the Community Service Center," he said. "We know how important these goods are to families in need and we feel one of our missions is to give back to this campus and community. Our brothers are ecstatic to take care of the greek aspect of this drive."

In past years, the donations were made to the West Alabama Food Bank, an organization that provides food to more than 315,000 residents, as well as the TES. In 2007, the Give-N-Go drive collected more than $10,000 in goods for the two organizations.

Every year the Give-N-Go drive takes place, the amount of goods donated increases because students become more familiar with the event. This increase can also be attributed to the growing awareness of the drive and the opportunity that students have to give back at the end of the year, Burford said.

The partners of the Give-N-Go drive said they focus on easily-accessible drop-off locations, as well as holding the drive at a time of the year when students are looking for alternatives to packing up everything in their dorm rooms to move home.

"They see that the small gesture of stopping in the lobby of their building can really impact the lives of people in this community," said Burford.