DUNMORE, Pa. — The HDFS Community Club, the Campus Activities Board (CAB), and the Student Nurses Association (SNA) at Penn State Scranton are holding a food drive for students and their families during the holiday season. The food drive is now underway and will run until Nov. 19. Any donations, which can include nonperishable food items and grocery store gift cards, can be dropped off in the HDFS suite office located on the first floor of the Dawson Building.
Nicole Paolicelli, coordinator of student activities at Penn State Scranton, said that she reached out to the HDFS and SNA clubs after she found out they were planning on doing food drives.
“I decided to reach out to the advisers of each club and gather details they had in mind and see if they wanted to collaborate and do ‘one big food drive,’” Paolicelli said. “My thought process was: how can we make this easier for people seeing all this information about what seems like multiple/different food drives (deciding who to donate to), multiple pick up/drop off locations, etc.?”
Paolicelli said that after speaking with HDFS club adviser Melissa Labuda and SNA club adviser Justina Ferguson, they decided to join forces so that they can better serve students and their families.
“We decided to combine forces so we can say ‘one drop-off location, one pick-up location, one community donation, but will primarily benefit our students and their families for the holidays and even beyond the holiday season,’” she said. “We also wanted to reach as many people as possible because there is such a need right now in the community, especially with our students still trying to get through some aftermath this pandemic.”
Acceptable donations include nonperishable foods and grocery store gift cards.
Individuals donating bags of food will have their name entered into a raffle to win a $50 Amazon gift card for EACH bag of food donated. If no one is present at the time of your drop-off, email Paolucci or Labuda (email addresses below).
More information will be sent out about pick up times as the drive is close to its conclusion. Any remaining donations that do not get picked up will be donated to the food pantry on campus, so that students can access these items if they need. Donations that do not get picked up will also be donated to the Knights of Columbus Holy Family Council #13025 in West Scranton, where they will continue to accept donations until the end of December.
For more information, contact Paolicelli at ntp10@psu.edu, Labuda at mal151@psu.edu, or Ferguson at jmm7952@psu.edu.