Monthly Care Packages Help Carl Sandburg College Students Recharge From Home
Aaron Frey
Friday, April 9, 2021 2:37 PM
Campus News
Galesburg, IL
With most Carl Sandburg College students not attending classes on campus for much of the 2020-21 school year, Genny Stevens wanted to find a way to keep them engaged.
As Stevens, Sandburg’s coordinator of student life, and members of the Student Government Association brainstormed ideas back in October, someone mentioned the idea of care packages modeled after monthly subscription boxes that people can have delivered to their door. Soon, Project Recharge — named after the College’s mascot, the Chargers — was born.
“But we wanted to be true to Carl Sandburg College nature and have this be a free program for students,” Stevens said. “We didn’t want there to be any cost to them.”
The program, which is sponsored through Sandburg’s Student Government Association, allows students to sign up to receive a free package each month during the school year filled with snacks, school supplies, Sandburg promotional items and other goodies. Family members also are able to sign up their student relative as a gift, and students with gluten, peanut or other food allergies can request substitute items when they register. Packages for those new to the program include a handwritten welcome card. In a year that has been trying for so many, the packages provide, as Stevens described them, “a little box of happiness.”
When initial registration for Project Recharge opened in October, Stevens figured she’d have 50-75 people sign up.
“And it just took off,” Stevens said. “And then it just kept growing.”
RELATED: Read this story and more in the 2021 edition of "Sandburg"
The first round of deliveries in November included boxes for 163 students. That number ballooned to 244 in December, and it has remained in the 200s during the spring semester. Macaroni cups, Pop Tarts, coffee mugs and Post-It notes have been among the most popular items so far.
“It’s been nothing but positive responses and students who are just so thankful. I have several students who email me almost every month and say, ‘This has just made my day, thank you so much,’” Stevens said. “It’s so nice to come home to a box like this, to have someone thinking about you during this time, and they’ve just really, really loved it.”
Because of COVID-19, Stevens and SGA members involved in Project Recharge take several precautionary measures when packing and delivering the boxes. Each is marked with the date it was packed and stamped to note who packed and shipped it. Once all the packages have been sealed, Stevens waits 72 hours before sending them out. Just under half of the packages each month are shipped in the mail. For the remaining 125 or so, Stevens and SGA members make contactless deliveries in a Sandburg shuttle bus on a route that averages 275 miles and stretches from Victoria to Smithshire.
“One of the cool things about this project is we’re literally out in our community,” Stevens said. “People in these neighborhoods are seeing our bus driving around, pulling into driveways and dropping off these things. And we’re seeing where our students live and experiencing a little bit of what they travel.”
While so many students have been unable to be at Sandburg in recent months, Project Recharge has helped bring a piece of Sandburg to them.
“We’re used to putting on events that are serving 50, 100, 150 people almost every week, and we haven’t been able to do that this year so we can make sure that we’re keeping our campus safe. It’s been a struggle that we can’t do that,” Stevens said. “I’m really looking forward to the day we can again, but until then, this project has helped kind of give purpose to us and reaching out to our students outside the classroom.”
