Students and staff at Kansas City Kansas Community College have been spending the last two weeks giving back to the community.
The Feeding the Community Food and Clothing Drive, sponsored by the Intercultural Center and Economics Club, started Sept. 23. Students, staff and community members at KCKCC’s main campus, TEC and the Leavenworth Center have been donating non-perishable food items; winter clothing such as hats, scarves, gloves and coats; blankets and hygiene items. The food and clothing drive ends Friday.
Barbara Clark-Evans, director of the Intercultural Center, said once the project is completed, the items will be sorted and donated to several organizations. Past recipients include an area women’s shelter and a boy’s home, organizations that help the homeless and campus groups such as KCKCC Community Outreach and the Women’s Resource Center Program. The service project is one of many ongoing efforts on the part of Intercultural Center and the Economics Club to connect with the larger community both as an educational strategy and as a grass root effort to help solve some local problems.
“Both organizations have sponsored this drive for the past several years,” she said. “We recognize that there are people in need in the college’s service area.”
Between 2007 and 2011, an estimated 21.9 percent of people who lived in Wyandotte County lived below the poverty rate. In addition, 19 percent of children in the state of Kansas live in poverty. Clark-Evans said it is important to teach young adults the importance of giving back to the community and helping those in need.
“As an institution of higher learning, it is the college’s role to prepare students for leadership positions,” she said. “Social and environmental responsibility is certainly an expectation of leaders today. We want to give students the opportunity to engage in service projects.”
For more information about the Intercultural Center or Economics Club at KCKCC, contact Barbara Clark-Evans atbclark@kckcc.edu or Mehdi Shariati at
mshariati@kckcc.edu.
