Winter is on its way, and students have already begun to pack their closets with thick gloves, hats and coats to get through the freezing winter months.

However, unlike most college students, who can bring or buy warm winter clothing, many people in the Grand Rapids area have few options available to keep warm this winter.

Five students at Grand Valley State University held a sweatshirt and sweater drive for Mel Trotter ministries on the Allendale Campus this semester.

Ariel Wilkerson, Chris Maniaci, Adam Bastow, Taylor Rodgers and Geoffrey Sedgley created the drive as a project for MGT 345 Team Building, a management course taught by professor Monica Allen. Allen said she challenges her students to conduct a project that helps the greater Grand Rapids area.

“The class is centered on the student groups identifying a need in the community and working together to help meet that need,” Allen said. “I leave it up to the students to identify their target organization, determine what need they can try to meet during the semester and work with the university community and local community businesses to try to find ways to provide a solution to the need. I am always amazed by what the students come up with and the impact that they have within our community. It helps to get them out of their comfort zones and lend a hand to others.”

The group decided to focus on an affordable solution to a common problem in an attempt to make their drive stand out.

“We struggled to make this project unique, as people do clothing drives and have charities like Coats for Kids or Shoes for Shorties,” Wilkerson said. “We sought out to collect sweatshirts because that’s an affordable item that college students would be able to give. The project developed to be much more after we set a goal of collecting 50 sweatshirts.”

Wilkerson said the students collected clothing and monetary donations in all of their GVSU courses. The students are planning on delivering the clothing to Mel Trotter, which helps about 81 families a week on average.

“Although we are not totally finished, the project has gone very good so far,” Sedgley said.

He said the students were able to reach beyond simply collecting sweatshirts by holding a fundraiser at Buffalo Wild Wings and receiving a “generous” donation from My Auto Import Center, a Muskegon car dealership.

“We couldn’t be happier with the outcome of our project,” Maniaci said. “I look forward to being able to see the smile on their faces when we personally deliver the clothing and monetary donations to a Mel Trotter retail store.”

Wilkerson said the project taught her it is sometimes more important to think about how to better help others than just trying to get the specific tasks accomplished.

“You never know when you’ll be the one in need,” she said. “As a group we had to band together for the cause. This experience has truly taught me about selflessness. I must say, I had a great group of people to collaborate with for this project’s success. It’s amazing to see what we accomplished.”

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