NSU Gives Back to the Community

With the holidays quickly approaching, 49 volunteers from OIIT, the Huizenga College of Business, the Alvin Sherman Library, Facilities, Physical Plant, Public Safety, and Fischler College of Education joined forces to give back to our community. On Tuesday, October 30, these teams collaborated to prepare 300 bagged lunches for the homeless.  Volunteers met in the Carl DeSantis building to join forces for this epic event.

“Bagged Lunches for the Homeless” will hopefully be the first of numerous interdepartmental community service projects. The initial plan, devised by Jaime Gentile, Director of Employee Services for the Office of Innovation and Information Technology, was to make 100 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. However, due to the overwhelming response from other departments, the goal was raised to 300!

The event proved successful as all 300 bagged lunches were completed in under one hour!  Employees worked diligently preparing the bagged lunches as multiple assembly lines ran simultaneously.  Once completed, the lunches were boxed and loaded into an NSU vehicle and then taken to the Broward Outreach Center located in Hollywood. Once there, the NSU employees were thanked graciously as personnel helped to haul the load into their dining area. An employee of the Broward Outreach Center shared that the center typically serves 200 homeless people an evening and, therefore, was quite appreciative of the group’s efforts. The center’s employee also stated this number does not even include the members of the community that are fed breakfast and lunch at the center daily.

Employees from the variety of NSU departments shared their excitement and interest to participate in future volunteering efforts. With the large number of charitable organizations in our area, it is hoped that this interdepartmental event will lead to a series of future occasions illustrating NSU’s devotion to give back!