Hungry to Serve: Mount Students Donate Food

NEWBURGH – Mount Saint Mary College students donated a whopping $2,000-plus worth of food on Monday, November 20, helping to feed local people in need this Thanksgiving.
The initiative, spearheaded by the college’s Campus Ministry, delivered the food to Newburgh’s First United Methodist Church on Liberty Street for distribution to local families.

Students donated $1,741.65 over five days for the drive, which surpassed the record by more than $1,000. They used the money to purchase food for donation on Monday morning, in addition to items collected on campus over the last three weeks.

Fr. Gregoire Fluet, director of Campus Ministry and Mount chaplain, and Roger May, assistant director of Campus Ministry, thanked the Mount community for their generosity.

As students helped ready the Thanksgiving feast for delivery, Campus Ministry and the Mount’s Office of Alumni Affairs began hosting a coat drive the very same day. The jackets will be donated to the Newburgh Ministry, which serves both low-income and the homeless population in Newburgh.

For the Christmas season, Campus Ministry began collecting toys to be donated to local people in need.

Earlier this semester, Campus Ministry collected hundreds of shirts, dresses, shoes, and more for the storm-ravaged areas of Texas, Florida, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the neighboring islands.

But the Mount’s spirit of giving doesn’t end with Campus Ministry: More than a dozen at-risk youths from Newburgh and beyond were thankful for food and friendship at the college’s Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) Thanksgiving gathering on Saturday, November 18.

The children will be spending Thanksgiving with their families, but the party gave them a chance to enjoy the holiday with their BBBS family as well. According to club president Jackie Hogan of Cornwall-On-Hudson, N.Y., nearly 20 Mount mentors joined in the fun.

The BBBS program is both rewarding and heart-warming as college students invest their time with underprivileged children. Through several get-togethers over the semester, the “Littles” form a lasting bond with their Mount “Bigs.”

Also on November 18, the college’s Aging United student club brought some Thanksgiving cheer to the residents of Montgomery Nursing Home in Newburgh, N.Y. during a visit. Aging United explores opportunities in service, programming, and research in the field of aging and hosts several events throughout the semester. In recent years, it has become a club tradition to visit the nursing home during the holiday season.