Students donate extra swipes to Rainbow House
The event ended early this semester due to rain.
Published Sept. 29, 2009
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Freshman Aigna Barber and sophomore Alexandria Seay participate in the Swipes campaign to benefit the Rainbow House of Columbia. The program gives students the opportunity to put leftover meals to use as food donations.
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Students donated extra swipes to the Rainbow House for a total of 31 boxes of food Saturday.
"You lose your extra points at the end of every week and I would lose multiple swipes every week," said Alex Holley, creator of the event and Multi-Cultural Issues chairwoman. "My parents used to say I was wasting my meals, so I thought that I would find something to do with them."
During the event, volunteers stood outside Plaza 900 Amphitheater and Dobb's Time Out and asked students to use leftover points from the week to buy food from one of the marts such as Emporium at Plaza 900.
The students buy whatever food they would like to donate and give the food to the Swipes volunteers outside where they wait with boxes. Chips, cereal, Fruit Roll-Ups, granola bars, Pop-Tarts, Cheez-Its and Nabisco snacks were among the food being donated.
Swipes began in the fall 2008. This is the third Swipes event. Rainbow House is the third charity the program has benefited. The other two charities donated to in the past were Granny's House and the Ronald McDonald House.
"When it started, Swipes was only at Plaza, and then second semester we expanded to Dobbs too," said Michelle Collins, MCI member and Missouri Students Association senator. "This semester it is at Dobbs and Plaza again."
The MCI committee accredits the expansion to the high student interest shown during the first event. Twenty boxes of food were collected the first time, and around 40 or 50 boxes were collected during the second Swipes event in the spring of 2009.
This year, due to bad weather, Swipes had to end the event a couple hours early and did not fill as many boxes.
The Rainbow House supports children in need, whether due to a family crisis or child abuse and neglect, according to the Rainbow House Web site. They house children in temporary emergency care and also hold a transitional living program for homeless youth who need help preparing for adulthood. They work throughout the mid-Missouri area offering prevention and intervention in abuse for children of all ages.
"We have different volunteer shifts and different locations, so there are anywhere between 40 to 60 people volunteering today," MCI Vice Chairwoman Lakeisha Williams said. "Our committee is comprised of eight official members, and the rest are volunteers we have recruited over the past few weeks."
The volunteers were outside advertising for the event by holding up signs, wearing Swipes T-shirts and passing out flyers to people walking around the Plaza 900 Amphitheater and Dobb's Time Out residential areas of campus. They also sorted the donated food into cardboard boxes.
"I'm in a Freshman Interest Group, and someone came to talk to my FIG about volunteering for this. Plus I've seen posters everywhere," volunteer Chelsea Olson said. "I figured that helping children in need was a good cause and the event only took a few hours so I said sure."