By Ni Baliness
Shirts, socks, pants, warm clothes and feminine hygiene products, for “people that need it, and deserve it.”
These were the items students from Long Beach State’s Black Business Student Association and the Society of Women in Business collected to support local women in need, according to BBSA Director Ryley Oxford.
“The mission of the drive was one, to connect and do something for women’s month, as well as give back to our community as we are Long Beach State students,” Oxford said.
The drive, which ran from March 3 to 26, asked students to drop donations off right outside of the Associated Business Students Organizations Council room 241 in the College of Business.
Although Oxford noted that places like Goodwill can provide clothing to women in need, they think women in shelters should have the opportunity to receive new clothes.
For the three weeks the drive ran, Oxford said the donations poured in with an overwhelming amount of clothing.
Despite this success in clothes, hygiene donations had been low, according to a third-year accounting major and Fundraising Director for the Black Business Student Association, Jada O’Connor.
“The box of clothes is overflowing and even though our hygiene box isn’t overflowing as much as our clothes box, there’s people from the community that are donating money,” O’Connor said.
Ryley Oxford mentions how clothes can be a “statement piece” for women, so being able to give them comfortable clothes that they can walk in and feel confident in is the impact Oxford hoping to create. Photo Credit: Ni Baliness
According to O’Connor, the received money from donor The Garden Nonprofit Organization will be allotted to buy more hygiene products in order to balance out the number of clothes they had received.
The two shelters that are being considered to receive donations are the Women Shelter of Long Beach and the Long Beach Rescue Mission.
Depending on how many clothes are collected, the donations will be split between the two shelters.
However, with few hygiene donations and uncertainty of how many products they can buy with the money they have received, the plan is to look at what each shelter wants.
“If the first shelter really likes clothes over hygiene, we’ll split it up in that way,” O’Connor said. “So it’ll kind of dictate where the stuff goes.”
Third-year finance major and Events and Outreach Coordinator for the SWB, Daisy Guzman-Navarrete said one of the drive’s focal points were feminine hygiene products.
“With hygiene products, it’s not easily accessible to some women,” Guzman-Navarrete said. “We wanted to make it more accessible and get them for free.”
Throughout the course of March, both groups cite seeing the community and students get involved in helping their drive.
“I think maybe for me, I’m just hoping to give some women hope that like even if you live in a shelter, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be glamorous or you can’t be clean,” O’Connor said. “To just kinda brighten their day a little bit.”
