BOARDMAN, Ohio – About 80 Youngstown State University Williamson College of Business Administration students, faculty and staff volunteered Friday by packing and sorting items for the Care Closets at Austintown Fitch High School.
The volunteers partnered with the United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley for the United We Care volunteer day at the agency’s Volunteer Resource Center.
“I always say there’s 100 different reasons why students come in to access the Care Closets, and every single one of those is a barrier to their learning,” said Amanda Shrader, a teacher at the school who manages the closets. “So what the United Way is helping us do is overcome those barriers to learning right there in the school system.”
There are United Way Care Closets at all Austintown Local Schools and about 27 at schools across the Valley. They’re stocked with food, clothing, hygiene and paper products and school supplies. At the Austintown high school, between 20 and 40 students visit the closets daily. They don’t have to prequalify.
“We have ours set up that it’s open at certain times that students are able to just come in when they need,” Shrader said. “They can also go to a guidance counselor and be brought in if they need something in particular at a certain time.”
Roxann Sebest, United Way vice president, said the Care Closets are resource pantries that offer items students need.
“A lot of schools do have food pantries, but what they were seeing is a lack of consistency,” she said. “What we’re able to do is provide that consistency and really provide stuff that they want to eat and want to take home.”
At the direction of United Way staff and with assembly line precision, YSU volunteers removed items including granola bars, toaster pastries, sports drinks and jelly from packaging, placed them in bins and prepared them for delivery. They put the empty boxes into a container for recycling. The bins will be delivered to the school.
Aidan Hankey, a junior business administration major in YSU’s Sokolov Honors College, said Friday’s volunteer day provided an opportunity to give back to the community. He hopes the effort helps the Austintown students.
“It’s just giving them a better chance, just helping them to do their best without having to worry about the things that should be normally essential in life,” Hankey said.
Laura Dewberry, director of YSU’s Center for Nonprofit Leadership, said Friday’s United We Care day is an extension of Dare to Care, which happens during spring semester. That’s when students, faculty and staff gather for breakfast and blitz out to 10 different nonprofit organizations.
Both events focus on the community, she said.
“Students, faculty, staff – we’re part of the community,” Dewberry said. “Students – whether they’re from here or they’re living here – they’re part of the community. They need to learn the different needs that exist in the Mahoning Valley and give back.”
And Shrader, the Austintown teacher, said the impact is significant. She relayed a story of a student who benefited from the Care Closet last school year. He was living with a friend after fighting with his parents and getting kicked out of his home. He didn’t have a change of clothes and wasn’t able to collect anything from home before he left.
He found food and hygiene products at the Care Closet, and after Shrader emailed the United Way about the young man, the agency sent new shoes and clothes. When Shrader gave them to the student, he said, ‘“Thank you, but I don’t understand. Why did they do this? They don’t even know me,’” the teacher relayed.
She told him though United Way representatives didn’t know him, they knew he needed those items to be successful.
“That just really highlights the importance of what the Care Closets do,” Shrader said. “Obviously, [it’s] a little more of an extreme story, but our students come into the Care Closet for a ton of different reasons, and every one of those reasons are a barrier to their learning.”
Pictured at top: Youngstown State University student Aidan Hankey and Nikeesha Austin, an academic adviser, volunteer at the United Way of Youngstown and Mahoning Valley’s Volunteer Resource Center.