College Publisher Network

Student Life

Drive offers furnishing and community

Andrea Winter

Issue date: 9/10/07 Section: News

Page 1 of 2 next >

Media Credit: David Hartstein

New international students hunt through furniture at Saturday's furniture drive hosted by Intervarsity International Friends. The furniture, donated by area families, was raffled off to those international students in attendance.

Last Saturday, new international graduate students gathered in the Millbrook garage to seek shelter from the rain and search for free furniture at the second Annual Furniture Giveaway. The Intervarsity Christian Fellowship and the International Friends, a subset of the Asian Christian Fellowship, hosted the event.

"We just wanted to bless [the International Students], because we know how hard it is to get furniture when you go to a new place," said Janet Atkin, a Washington University graduate of the class of 2004, who started the International Friends organization in 2002 and who spearheaded the first Annual Giveaway last year.

The Millbrook garage was stocked with over 50 pieces of furniture including sofas, beds, dressers, tables, chairs and other household items that were all donated by St. Louis families.

Nearly all of the furniture was given away, with the exception of a few small items. Every item that was given away was delivered to the residence of each international student.

"All the students help to deliver it to each others' homes; some of the new students rode around and brought furniture to each other," said Atkin. "It was a great community event because people worked together and helped each other out."

A barbecue and an information session on international activities followed the Giveaway.

According to Atkin, the event was a definite success with a turnout of roughly 85 to 100 people.

"The amazing part was to see how the older students helped the new students, and new students helped each other. It was really beautiful to see people caring for each other," she said.

Seth Waldecker, a graduate student who helped to coordinate the event, agreed that it was a success.

"This year there was a lot more people and a lot more furniture," he said.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools

Subscribe:

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive. Comments are not edited for grammar or spelling; posts with profanity will be posted at the discretion of the moderator and only after profanity has been removed.

Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2

Sharon

posted 9/10/07 @ 9:20 AM CST

This is a wonderful event. Perhaps you can add to it - the amount of home furnishings I saw thrown away at move-out last spring was unbelievable. Students threw things away that they could not put in storage or take home for a variety of reasons. (Continued…)

Details Reply to this comment

Margaret Bauer

posted 9/14/07 @ 4:22 PM CST

Sharon--exactly. I wrote a piece about that very idea one time, not for this newspaper but for the Washington Witness. (Sadly, almost no one saw it.) I can't believe how many things students at Wash. (Continued…)