Temple University - Templar Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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students looking for ways that they could help out. Ebreo created a Facebook page called Swipes lor Philadelphia to show students how 10 get more involved in the organization. On the page he posts dates that he will be handing out food with places and times where students can drop oil' donations, for those students who want to donate, but can not physically get involved. Junior chemistry major, Biki Benipal, saw Ebreo’s post on Facebook and wanted to get more involved. After meeting with Ebreo, Benipal realized that they, “have the same appreciation for helping people.” Benipal feels that, “homeless people have a bad stigma. Everybody says oh they’re just going to use it [money] for drugs, but I say what if it’s that one person that needs help.” Biki has joined Ebreo on his quest to grow the organization even more. They have been contacted by an organization that started at the University of California, Los Angeles called “Swipe Out Hunger.” “We have been collaborating with the people from Swipe Out Hunger to try to implement a program so the swipes can also be forwarded to the students that really need them,” explained Ebreo. Benipal thinks that implementing the donation swipes to Temple’s program would help a great deal. He said, “there are students that need help and there are homeless people that need the food and the money, but they are just too scared of the backlash if they do reach out.” If Temple does take on donation swipes it would give students with a premium meal plan the chance to donate and place food in the hands of people who actually need it instead of the meals going to waste. Starting at the beginning of the Spring semester of 2018, Swipes for Philadelphia is going to become an official campus organization. They are looking to make different teams that will be in charge of things like social media, distribution, and collection in order to get as much food out to people in need as possible. “We want some heavy student involvement and will accept as many volunteers as possible, explained Ebreo. Benipal said, “Once we grow as an organization and start, our ideas are endless.” WRITTEN BY CLAUDIA MURTHA PHOTOGRAPHED BY NATE HARVEY

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Swipes for Philly V ■r Temple student organization helps fight hunger in Philadelphia with leftover meal swipes AaronRcy Ebrco was just a freshman biology major at Temple University when he noticed something was ofT about the way the school was handling its leftover dining hall food. Now a sophomore at the university, Ebrco continues to search for a way to improve the distribution of food. He explained that students would have tons of leftover meal swipes that did not roll over to be used during the next week. Not only was this a waste of money, but it was also a waste of food, because the food the students did not consum would ultimately be thrown in the trash. Ebreo found tins extremely unsettling especially due to the increasing amount of starving homeless people in Philadelphia. When Ebreo came to Temple for college, he saw the problem of homelessness in Philadelphia as, “an opportunity to give back to the community I was planted in.” Ebreo had the premium 25 meal plan, and he never used all of his meal swipes during the week as a freshman at Temple. Each Sunday, with whatever leftover meal swipes he had, he would use them to purchase things like cereal, bottled water and apple cider that he then could hand out to the homeless population of Philadelphia. Ebreo explained how rewarding it is to participate in Swipes for Philly. He said, “Seeing the happiness on people's faces brings out such a good feeling to the people and myself, honestly it leaves me speechless.’’ Before his first trip, Ebreo posted a picture of himself with a trash bag full of cereal cups in the Temple class of 2020 l acebook page. In his post he told his fellow students what he planned to do with the cups and encouraged people to do the same by simply asking, “Does anyone wanna help?” I I lis post generated a lot of positive feedback and what started off with just himself collecting leftover swipes lead to odv

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Owls Helping the Homeless Open-Mic Night Fundraiser to Support Jenna Burleigh’s Charity Nearly three months ago, Temple University mourned the loss of Jenna Burleigh. Burleigh left a kind and genuine impression on the hearts of everyone she encountered. She also left behind her charity, Jenna’s Blessing Bags, designed to help the homeless and supply necessities to those who need it most. Owls Helping the Homeless, a student run charity group, is headed by Kicrstin Anderson, Dan Knott. Gerard Lang, Furkan Cclik, and Quan Nguyen. Each of them are in an entrepreneurial marketing class in the Fox School of Business. Their professor, Jean Wilcox, gave them an assignment called the 10-10-10 project, which entailed picking a cause each of them cared deeply about and raising funds for it. The basis of this 10-10-10 project, is to give each student team ten dollars seed money, which is the first round of capital for any start-up business, and see how they can multiply that original amount through fundraising. There are only four constraints to the project assigned by Professor Wilcox . First, the team’s objective must be to do something for the surrounding community. Second, the team must establish a public relations strategy revolving around social media. Next, students must report all expenses, donations, and potential sponsorships. Lastly, these teams must create an entity that will continue to help their chosen charity or cause. Their charity of choice? Jenna’s Blessing Bags. “One thing I do remember, aside from her captivating personality, was her passion for helping the homeless,” said Lang about Jenna Burleigh. Lang was the individual who suggested Burleigh’s charity. He attended Souderton Area High School with Burleigh and Spoke highly of her. “Jenna had an awesome personality that was manifested weekly on our school morning show, ‘Red Alert'. She was the stare the show. While I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing her on a personal level, her brilliant personality and deep compassion for others inspired me to take action in support of Jenna’s Blessing Bags,” Lang said. Jenna’s Blessing Bags creates and distributes survival backpacks. These bags are stuffed with necessities from wool hats and scarves to first aid kits and flashlights. “We thought choosing this charity would be a great way to help our cause while honoring the life of a fellow owl,” said Kier-stin Anderson about why she decided to get involved with this charity. In order to raise money, these five students organized a series of open-mic nights at Saxby’s Coffee. Anderson said they decided to do an open-mic night instead of a traditional bake sale because, “We didn’t want anything to flashy, because the tragedy of Jenna Burleigh is still so fresh on campus.