By SAMANTHA SIZEMORE
More than 400 boxes of non-perishable food items and used clothing were donated to the victims of Hurricane Mitch during a campus-wide food and clothing drive last week.
The drive, which was sponsored by the Spanish department and Sigma Delta Phi, began Tuesday and ran through Friday. Donation boxes were set up in most of the buildings on campus and several off-campus housing complexes.
Volunteers got together Saturday morning to pack the donations. Bags of clothing and boxes of food piled to the ceilings of the rooms in which they were working. More boxes were stacked up in the third-floor hallways of the Ernest L. Wilkinson Center.
Volunteers labelled the boxes in Spanish. They also wrote messages all over the boxes in Spanish, saying, “We love you” and, “We’re with you, brothers.”
The donations were picked up by Deseret Industries to be shipped to Central America.
Nikki Biscupovich, a Vice President of Sigma Delta Phi and one of the coordinators of the drive, said he was only worried they wouldn’t be able to pack all of the things before the Deseret Industries truck arrived to pick it up.
Biscupovich also said most of the clothes people donated were in great condition.
“We received a great response from many different clubs. We are so grateful for the response of the people and for the students,” he said.
Sherisa Wright, a student volunteer from Kennewick, Wash., said,”If it weren’t for all the generous and gracious people at BYU, we wouldn’t have all of this stuff.”
The death toll from Hurricane Mitch is over 11,000 and more than 1 million people are homeless because of the deadly storm. The BYU donations will be sent mainly to Honduras and Nicaragua.
