News & Events
College Community’s Spirit of Giving Is High as 2008 Draws to a Close
While holiday shoppers nationwide tightened their purse strings as 2008 drew a close, the spirit of giving at City Tech was alive and well across campus. From Our Children’s Center to the Departments of Dental Hygiene and Hospitality Management, from the Student Veterans Club to other student and faculty organizations, “Santa’s little helpers” and other College-affiliated doers of good deeds were busy brightening holidays throughout the larger community.
The attached Photo Gallery is testament to just how busy members of the College community were. Youngsters served by Our Children’s Center spent December making holiday cards and otherwise responding to children who had written Letters to Santa. The kids also walked the halls on behalf of Safe Horizons to collect pennies and other loose change to help purchase toys, books, clothing and other gifts for New Yorkers in need. The Office of Student Life & Development hosted a “Toys & Treats” event to help support the “CUNY Toy Drive,” which featured holiday cookie decorating as students, faculty and staff chilled to a live jazz band. Other groups that included the International Student Alliance and NYPIRG sponsored canned food and coats drives to benefit the needy.
As part of their “Send a Soldier a Smile” campaign, now in its third year, dental hygiene students packed and shipped gift bags of badly needed dental healthcare products to hundreds of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, particularly those related to members of the City Tech community. Recipients received handwritten messages, as well, and faculty assisted the effort by providing homemade cookies for the students assembling the gift bags and writing the notes. The Department of Nursing’s Newman Club held a bake sale to buy gifts for children enrolled in Our Children’s Center, while student veterans actively supported the U.S. Marine Corps’ annual “Toys for Tots” drive and encouraged others to do the same.
Hospitality management students and faculty again planned, purchased, prepared and helped serve a holiday meal for nearly 1,000 homeless Brooklynites who rely on the borough’s CHIPS shelter for assistance. The menu included hot soup, roast turkey, fresh vegetables, potatoes and other starches, fresh baked breads and an assortment of holiday desserts. To fund the meal, the department auctioned a cooking class for 12 through the City Tech Foundation. Students, faculty and staff also contributed toward the purchase of the food and the United Nations Federal Credit Union (UNFCU) provided dry goods and financial support for the project.
While many members of the College community joined millions of Americans in keeping a close watch on their spending late last year as layoffs mounted, retirement accounts shrank and the cost of just about everything went up and up, what remained steady was the charitable commitment on behalf of the needy that has marked City Tech’s 62-year history.
That commitment has surfaced over and over again. In recent decades, City Tech’s free or low-cost Dental Hygiene, Vision Care and Elder Law Clinic Clinics have provided invaluable assistance to community residents. Its HIV/AIDS-related Gifts for Special Children Project, volunteer efforts by students on behalf of the American Red Cross Fire & Burn Safety Program, and alumni mentoring efforts on behalf of George Westinghouse High School students planning to go to college have left indelible marks. In late 2008, College faculty and staff support for the more than 900 organizations served by the CUNY Campaign for Charitable Giving – including City Tech Foundation-sponsored student financial assistance programs and the College’s child care center – not only met but exceeded target. In addition, the College’s Ursula C. Schwerin Library began to look for ways to put the hundreds of books that are removed from its shelves each year to better use on behalf of the educational needs of the larger community. Indeed, the spirit of giving was alive and well at City Tech this past holiday season.
Photo Gallery
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