In honor of Women’s History Month, from March 7 to April 1, the Office of Multicultural Student Services (OMSS) is hosting a clothing drive. The drive will benefit Wayside Cross Ministries Lifespring Center for Women, which is a women’s shelter located in Aurora, Illinois. They are currently accepting donations of new clothing like socks and pajamas for women and children of all ages. All donations can either be dropped up via curbside or have a scheduled pickup.
“We really wanted to do something because it’s Women’s Month and obviously, with COVID-19, a lot of families were hit pretty hard,” said graduate assistant Elizabeth Floresca. “Especially those who are in homeless shelters or domestic violence shelters, we really just wanted to collect some essential things for those women and children.”
The goal of the clothing drive is to give back to the community and to also donate new clothing to the women and children at the shelter.
“The purpose of the clothing drive is to give the mothers and children more comfort in an uncomfortable situation in the shelter, which can be very overwhelming for some families,” said Floresca. “Giving them a nice warm set of pajamas and socks could make their night a little better.”
Anyone who donates an item of clothing, whether that be socks or pajamas, will receive one raffle ticket for a chance to win a 2022 Women’s History Month T-shirt from Old Navy.
“Old Navy works with minority artists and every year, they create new T-shirts with a new design and those are the T-shirts we bought,” said Floresca. “We always try to incorporate something like that because women are a minority and sometimes underrepresented, so it’s really important to us to make sure we’re doing something for them.”
Everyone is encouraged to donate an item of clothing because it’s important to do our part to help people in our community, especially those in need.
“We would encourage people to donate because it directly impacts our surrounding community,” said Floresca. “We go to Lewis and part of that means upholding the Lasallian values the university was founded on.”
OMSS hopes to collect enough clothing items from the community, to meet their goal of providing clothes for five families at the shelter.
“The drive will provide socks and pajamas so that it will allow for the families to feel more at home in the center,” said Floresca. “Families leave a difficult situation and seek help at centers just like this one, however, a lot of times, the family is forced to leave with only what they can carry which does not leave room for all necessary items.”
Along with holding this clothing drive during Women’s HIstory Month, one upcoming event on March 23 is Women in LGBTQ+ History with Dr. Lisa Brown, which is a presentation about topics relating to the past experience of women in the LGBTQ+ community.
Photo Credit: Katelyn Leano
