Students donate money, time to help Haitian earthquake victims

 

Students at Lipscomb University collected $6,250 Tuesday, Jan. 19, to send medical supplies and equipment to victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Additional long-term efforts are underway with a T-shirt sale benefiting relief efforts and a drive to collect unused gift cards for the purchase of additional supplies.

 

The money will be used to send medical supplies and medicine to Haiti through Mobile Medical Disaster Relief (MMDR), a non-profit run by Nashville doctor David Vanderpool. This disaster relief organization was chosen just moments before the chapel service started when Vanderpool called a friend on the Lipscomb staff and begged for help as he described having to amputate limbs with no anesthesia. The medical supplies funded by the students' spontaneous collection on Tuesday were delivered to Haiti before the end of the week.

 

"In a matter of minutes after the call for help was made, it was an awesome sight to witness God working through our students as they poured out their hearts through giving their own money, which they typically have so little of anyway as college students, "said Mark Jent, assistant director of missions. "They were unselfishly giving whatever they had, whether change or spare $1 bills.  Amazingly some of them didn't think twice about dropping 20's, 50's and even 100's into the baskets on the way out of chapel. When we heard Dr. Vanderpool describe the scene that was right before his eyes as he stood in the midst of the worst human catastrophe in this poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, we knew that we had to do something to help him help those people.”

 

In addition, Lipscomb’s Student Government Association (SGA) is joining with the student governments of six other Church of Christ-affiliated universities to continue raising funds for disaster relief by selling T-shirts and collecting unused gift cards. Lipscomb’s SGA is covering the cost of purchasing the T-shirts, so all proceeds will benefit the Haitian people.

 

 

The gift cards will be redeemed through giftcardgiver.com and used to purchase goods to help the efforts in Haiti.  Donors should write the amount left on the card in black ink and drop the cards off at the SGA office.

 

In addition, because of their compassion for the earthquake victims, the Student Government Association has decided not to hold second annual King of the Herd competition (slated for Jan. 25 as part of the pre-Battle of the Boulevard student activities), said SGA President Mary Morgan Gentry. The association will instead donate the money it would have used to purchase the prize, a MacBook computer, to purchase relief supplies for Haiti, she said.