As part of Management 101, a course Bucknellians in the Freeman College of Management are required to take in their freshman year spring semester, students are split into “companies” and given the goal of raising money to contribute to a local cause. This year’s Company A—self-named “A-Head of Hunger”—partnered with the Milton and Sunbury YMCAs to establish community fridges at both locations, hoping to provide nutritional aid to those in need. Last weekend, on both April 18 and 19, Company A held ribbon-cutting ceremonies at each respective location to celebrate, in the words of one of the company’s Fundraising and Event Directors Brenda Javier Heredia ’29, “the work [they] accomplished and the people [they’ll] be able to help.”
The process took all semester. “With the 26 students in our class,” Heredia explains, “we managed to create a product to sell,” from which they could “donate all proceeds” to their YMCA partners “as well as build [the two] sheds” to house the fridges and any spillover, non-perishable items that may be donated. The product in question was rope hats, with “a custom designed logo” created by the company. They ordered “a total of 300 hats” to sell; they sold out completely by April 20, meeting their sales goal and enabling the full funding of their project.
“We built the fridges in hopes of [establishing] long-term sustainability,” says Heredia. Hopefully, they’ll last even beyond this semester. “By giving [the YMCAs] monetary donations we raised,” the company is enabling their partners to “upkeep the fridge[s].” They also connected the YMCAs with “local restaurants,” so hopefully, “they can have continuous donations.”
Company CEO Sawyer Camlin ’29 emphasizes the importance of the ceremonies they held. “The Ribbon Cutting Ceremonies marked a monumental part of our company” process, as they marked the launch (and celebration!) of “two community fridges that will allow a stigma-free, 24/7 access to food.” The whole team appreciates how much of a “great journey” and “extremely rewarding outcome” their efforts have been and enabled; they hope, in the end, that they’ve opened the door for a “a lasting impact of neighbors helping neighbors.”
