by Rachel Williams
Students at the Richards College of Business put their heads together to keep Carrollton residents from going hungry during their annual Cans for a Cause food drive. The program promotes leadership, teamwork and friendly competition between student organizations in the business school. Several students representing each group attended the November 21 awards ceremony, where they kept warm with the hot chocolate bar while waiting for the winners to be announced around 11 a.m. Afterward, students loaded the haul onto a truck and delivered it to the Carrollton soup kitchen.
“It brings the students closer to the community and allows them to interact with those people on a personal basis,” explains Dr. Doug Turner, associate dean of Richards College of Business. “It also allows various subsets and teams of students to work together as a unified group. This is student-driven. All the logistics are handled by the students.”
The student in charge of logistics this year was senior Elvina Ganbarova, an economics major who is also the president of the economics honors society, Omicron Delta Epsilon. “The Dean’s Council of Student Leaders initiated the food drive this year,” Elvina says. “We decided with Dr. McIntyre that we were going to carry on the tradition this year. We’re happy that we can do it; it’s a nice way to give back to the community.”
“It’s about coming together and helping others,” adds Lee Augsburger, a senior representing Management Information Systems club. “It’s a little friendly competition between clubs and all that, but in the end, it’s for a good cause.”
Elvina continues, “We had support from the community as well. Friends and family helped out, as well as the local Food Depot. It was really nice to have support from the community.”
Dr. Turner announced the winners once all the cans and boxes had been counted. The first place winner, with 982 cans, was the management department. Finance took second place with 390 cans, and economics took third with 276. The winning groups received $200, $100 and $50, respectively. In total, the students donated 1893 items of food.
Management:
Mark Wilkinson
Salvador Lopez
Finance Club:
Chantasia Arnold
Trent Watkins
Nathaniel Malcolms
Economics Club:
Elvina Ganbarova
