MANSFIELD, PA— Donations from the Mansfield University student project, the Collection Collaboration Campaign, were recently distributed to 200 families on the Island of Tasajera, El Salvador.
The project, led by then student and now graduate Jason White during the spring 2015 semester, began with collection efforts in March that ended in April. Donations were packed for shipping by students during MU’s annual BIG Event community service project.
Villagers lined up for two and a half hours to receive donations. One representative was permitted per family to enter the hostel where the donations have been stored since the end of September. Representatives entered in groups of five and were given four to five minutes to select items for their families.
The distribution process was overseen by volunteers from the Salvadoran non-profit groups EMANA and Sus Hijos, or ‘His Children,’ along with EMANA’s women’s empowerment group, the Artisans of the Sea. MU graduate and EMANA founder, Daniel Teodoro, returned to El Salvador, after completing a graduate program in Hungary, to assist with overseeing the donation distributions.
White planned the project with volunteers operating in El Salvador, Hungary, the Netherlands, Brazil, and the U.S. The Mountie Den, the MU campus bookstore and the First Citizens Banks in Mansfield and Troy, PA, volunteered space for the collection boxes. The MU Campus Bookstore also helped with shipping by providing boxes and their shipping account. The St. Paul’s Episcopal Church’s Thrift Store donated approximately 20 bags of clothing to the project. The Lowes in Mansfield donated the boxes for the collection sites. The Auto Zone in Mansfield donated the pallets for shipping the donations. The Mansfield YMCA offered space for pallets so that the donations could be picked up by tractor-trailer. 41 businesses across Mansfield, Wellsboro, and Troy gave permission to advertise at their locations for the project.
White and Teodoro worked with the shipping company, Sistemas Aereos, owned by a family friend to Teodoro, and Sus Hijos to get the donations into El Salvador. In order to have the donations enter the country without paying commercial taxes, Sus Hijos worked to gain approval from the President of El Salvador’s Office, which took several months to finalize. Once they had permission to bring the donations into the country, Sus Hijos transported the donations via van and boat to the Island of Tasajera to a hostel used for EMANA mission trips.
Teodoro is still in El Salvador working on preparations to build a school funded by EMANA volunteers’ efforts. White and Teodoro intend to continue working together to collect donations and raise funds to bring volunteers, aid, and sustainable development tools to the villagers on the Island of Tasajera, El Salvador.
To learn more about the Collection Collaboration Campaign, go to facebook.com/EmanaCCC
To learn more about EMANA, go to emanaelsalvador.org/