A project aimed at helping international students at Emporia State University with bedding has only half the bedding needed to help students from abroad.
Emporian Kristi Wright is one of the people spearheading the effort to supply international students with bedding this fall.
“When the students come, because they are flying, they have very limited supplies they can bring with them,” Wright said. “When they come, one of the first things that we do is get them to Walmart and get things that normal Americans would take with them. Bedding is one of them because it’s so bulky and so heavy.”
Wright said a lot of the students are here a semester or two at the most.
“When I first started doing this, I noticed that everyone was having to buy bedding,” she said. “Then I started asking the question ‘what do they do with it when they leave?’”
Wright said she discovered that some of the students give the bedding to their friends, but much of it was thrown into dumpsters.
“That’s when I got this brilliant idea of doing this exchange,” she said. “The bedding that we are giving to them, they will give back to us and we’ll wash it and package it up and give it to someone else who is coming.”
The project is win-win.
“They don’t have to waste their money on bedding that they’re only going to be using for a few months,” Wright said.
Wright, who is a member of Twelfth Avenue Baptist Church, said a fund has been set up at the church for monetary donations toward the project. Donations are tax deductible. They also will take donations of bedding from the public. For more information or to donate call Wright at 343-2306; LeAnn Sanchez, 757-0312; or Brenda Ulrich, 342-0406.