Ursinus College's Contribution to Fill the Media Lab Challenge

I'm proud to say that the Ursinus College community came together to reach their goal of 100 items (okay, 99) to contribute to the Mercury's overall 20,000 item goal.

 

Ursinus College Donation

As of yesterday (Monday, April 2), The Mercury had reached the 11,000 mark in the number of food donations and was close to half of their goal to collect 1,000 laundry detergents. Several thousand more items are expected to come in over the next week from local schools and other donation sites.


You can see the Media Lab filled on the Fill the Media Lab pinterest board.

Donations will continue to be accepted at the sites displayed on the map below, up until Sunday, April 8. The 20,000 item goal is certainly attainable as long as donations continue to come in for the rest of this week.

It's all about coming together to give back to our community. I'm very proud of Ursinus College, the TownSquare bloggers, The Mercury, and everyone in the local community who has contributed to making this project such a terrific success.

A Plea to Ursinus (or Any College) Students

What would you do if you were no longer able to afford to buy food, toiletries, and laundry detergent at Redners, Wawa, or Wegman’s?


No problem, right?


Because there is always Wismer, Zach’s, and the Convenience Store to consistently supply two or three meals a day.


But what would you do if you were not able to afford going to a grocery store...and then Wismer suffered a food shortage?


You begin to wonder where your next meal may come from, laundry detergent becomes the equivalent to “liquid gold”, and items such as toiletries and cookies become mere luxuries.


This is the situation that many local families are currently facing. Faced with unemployment and salary cuts, more and more families have been turning to food pantries in order to be able to afford to buy food and other necessities. Unfortunately, the pantries themselves are facing difficult times and are no longer able to meet the demand for food.


Due to rising fuel and food costs, the demand for items at food pantries, such as thePottstown Cluster Outreach (just 20 minutes down the road from Ursinus), is increasing, while the number of donations is decreasing. In response to this food shortage, a local newspaper, the Pottstown Mercury, has organized a food drive to benefit all of the area food pantries.


The Mercury’s goal is to collect 20,000 nutritious, non-perishable food items and 1,000 containers of laundry detergent by April 8. The need for containers of laundry detergent came to The Mercury’s attention when a worker at a food pantry in Boyertown shared the story of a young girl who was more excited that her family was getting laundry detergent, which they could use to make their clothes “smell nice”, than she was about getting some cookies.


Ursinus College has pledged to help The Mercury reach their goal, by trying to collect 100 food items to contribute to the overall goal of 20,000 items.


Almost every student on campus has a small collection of food in their dorms rooms, typically consisting of Ramen noodles, macaroni and cheese, soup, cereal, etc. If every student on campus could donate just ONE of their non-perishable food items, it could have a tremendous impact on Ursinus College’s local community and in the fight against Hunger.


Donations can be dropped off in the UCARE office from now until April 6.


For further information about the food drive and its progress, go here.

The Media Lab Still Needs to be Filled!

The Community Media Lab in The Pottstown Mercury is (virtually) filling up! 

Look at all the laundry detergent!!

The efforts of a few are making a big difference.

Individuals from communities far outside ours are even getting in on the action and contributing.

But we still have a long way to go to reach our goal!

You can donate items from now until April 8 by bringing them to any of the locations on the map below.