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Lander Students Organize Hurricane Relief Efforts

hurricane-relief-TN.jpgLander University's Delta Sigma Theta Sorority is organizing a relief effort to aid people in Texas who were victims of Hurricane Harvey.

Landing in Rockport on August 25, Hurricane Harvey poured down more than 40 inches of rain across eastern Texas, causing catastrophic flooding and displacing more than 30,000 people from their homes.

The five members of Delta Sigma will have donation dropboxes in the Cultural Center Sept. 14-17 for practically any kind of non-perishable items such as blankets, clothes, shoes, bottled water and all kinds of other non-perishables.

"We want whatever people want to offer that will help make a difference to people affected by the hurricane's flooding," said Delta Sigma president Amari Williams.

The group's effort comes on the heels of two other campus hurricane relief drives.

The 41 members of Lander's Dance/Cheer team collected items that were delivered to Killen, Tex., by dance team member Noel Rivest over Labor Day weekend.

"I was planning to fly there on Labor Day weekend anyway, so I volunteered to take as many of the items with me as I could," Rivest said.

And Lander athletics responded University of Houston Basketball coach Kelvin Sampson - who posted a request on Twitter asking if other teams throughout the country would be willing to send 20 shirts and 10 pairs of shoes for them to re-distribute to families in their area."

"So all the Lander coaches got together and loaded four boxes with 110 items of clothing - jackets, tee shirts, Polo shorts and things like that - and we got another two boxes from the softball coaches with shirts and pants," said Rixon Lane, Lander assistant athletic director for Sports Media. "And we shipped them all out through Citizen's Trust here in Greenwood."

Lane, Rivest, and Williams added that the intended drives could be expanded in the coming weeks depending on the effects from the recent Hurricane Irma.

"We like to think that what we do goes beyond us," Williams said. "And we don't limit our community service to just our community."