Elizabethtown College’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) recently partnered with Thistle Farms, a non-profit organization, to help women who have survived lives of violence, prostitution and addiction.
The CCCE and Thistle Farms are setting up donation spaces in CCCE’s office on the second floor of Nicarry Hall for students to donate T-shirts to the charity. The T-shirts collected will be used for making paper items including cards, stationary, gift tags and ornaments, which will be sold to benefit Thistle Farms’ program. “Knowing that paper making is valuable to the Thistle Farm enterprise and that T-shirts are needed for the paper making process, how can we not help? Especially, when are able to do so with very little effort,” Director of CCCE Nancy Valkenburg said.
After Rev. Becca Stevens, founder of Thistle Farms, presented a program at the College last spring describing the institution’s two-year residential program, students approached the CCCE about planning a spring break trip to volunteer at Thistle Farms. According to Valkenburg, Stevens had asked the College to become educated about the lives of women who have been victims of addiction, prostitution, violence and human trafficking and help in any way possible.
As a result of their experiences during the spring break trip to Thistle Farms, Etown students, faculty and staff members decided to officially bring this charity to the College campus. “The women at Thistle Farms welcomed us, shared their stories with us, appreciated our willingness to get to learn about them and the program and they became our friends,” Valkenburg said. “They couldn’t believe that college students would care about them. Or that the students would give up spring break to be with them and volunteer with the program.”
T-shirts of any condition and color can be donated, the only requirement being that they must be 100 percent cotton. The CCCE has collected over 50 shirts thus far this semester and hopes to accumulate 200 by the end of the 2012-2013 school year. “We are hoping that others will be willing to help make a difference, will reach out to the women at Thistle Farms or to other communities in need,” Valkenburg said. “Etown has made a difference in the lives of the women at Thistle Farms. Thistle Farms invited us to return next year! Plans are already being made for the return trip.”