Three South Georgia Technical College (SGTC) student organizations teamed up with other local partners during the holiday season to raise and donate more than 1,250 items to members of the community during the fifth annual Season of Giving initiative.
SGTC’s Phi Beta Lambda (PBL) student organization on the Americus campus coordinated the event as part of their PBL Community Service Project effort. In order to reach more people and raise more donations, the organization connected with fellow SGTC organizations, Student Government Association (Cordele campus) and the National Technical Honor Society (Cordele campus), as well as community partners PharmaCentra, Georgia Southwestern State University’s Student African American Brotherhood, and Americus Sumter High School’s Future Business Leaders of America, to raise items for community members in need during the holidays.
The initiative was composed of three separate drives: a non-perishable food drive, a trauma bear drive in which stuffed animals were raised, and an unopened toy drive.
In all, the effort yielded 1,282 donations, including 946 food items, 170 trauma bears and 166 toys for children – tripling the contributions from the year before and bringing the total number of items donated over the past five years to 4,579.
Dr. Andrea Oates, SGTC academic dean and Phi Beta Lambda advisor, said that the community partners were a crucial part to the success of the drive.
"PBL would like to thank everyone for their contributions that made an impact on so many lives," she said. "We could not have been so successful without the help of Kim Christmas and PBL alum Kia Mable of PharmaCentra, Dr. Alma Keita of GSW's Student African American Brotherhood, Pamerla Harvey of Americus Sumter High School's FBLA, Kari Bodrey of SGTC's Cordele Campus, and our own Donna Lawrence - SGTC and state PBL advisor."
Americus area items were donated to Harvest of Hope Food Pantry, the Georgia State Patrol and the Sumter County Department of Family and Child Services (DFSCs).
Cordele area items were donated to the Concerned Citizens That Care organization, Crisp EMT Services and the local Adopt an Angel program.
SGTC’s various student organizations serve different individual purposes and have different missions, but are all dedicated to helping bridge the college and the local community through participating in community service projects. For more information on student organizations at SGTC, contact Cynthia Carter by email at ccarter@southgatech.edu or by phone at (229) 931-2057.
