This fall, 1,168 education kits and 286 health kits-that's thousands of pounds of notebooks, crayons, toothbrushes and soap-were on their way to Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, the result of weeks of work by Union students and others eager to help victims of Hurricane Katrina.
“Each of the Minervas pledged money to purchase supplies for the children,” said Golub House's Varun Shetty '08, who launched the initiative.
Thirty-one groups in all, including church groups from as far away as Syracuse, pitched in for the joint Union-community effort.
The kits were assembled in Minerva houses and packed up in the Kenney Community Center, where they filled the basement before being loaded onto a truck.
The Union community raised more than $10,000 for hurricane relief, to be donated to the American Red Cross Katrina Disaster Relief Fund. More than $7,000 came from student-run fundraisers led by Norman Nguyen '08 and Daniel Khasidy '06.